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HILDA AND THE TWO BROTHERS. — p. I5 8 - 

Harold. 




2Ti)e ILorti Uytton iSfcitton. 


HAllOLD 

THE LAST OF THE SAXON KINGS 


BY 

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART. 

9 » 


COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME 



PHILADELPHIA 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 


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PREFACE. 


The “author of an able and learned article on 
Mabillon,* in the Edinburgh Review, has accu- 
rately described my aim in this worn.; although, 
with that generous courtesy which characterizes the 
true scholar, in referring to the labors of a con- 
temporary, he has overrated my success. It was 
indeed my aim “to solve the problem how to produce 
the greatest amount of dramatic effect at the least 
expense of historical truth," — I borrow the words 
of the Reviewer, since none other could so tersely 
express my design, or so clearly account for the lead- 
ing characteristics in its conduct and completion. 

There are two ways of employing the materials 
of History in the service of Romance : the one con- 
sists in lending to ideal personages, and to an 
imaginary fable, the additional interest, to be derived 
from historical groupings : the other in extracting 
the main interest of romantic narrative from History 
itself. Those who adopt the former mode are at 

* The Edinburgh Review, No. CLXXIX. January, 1849. Art. I. 
“Correspondance in^dite, de Mabillon et de Montfaucon, aveo 
ritalie.” Par M. Valery. Paris, 1848. 

1 * (▼) 


vi 


PREFACE. 


liberty to exclude all that does not contribute to 
theatrical effect or picturesque composition; their 
fidelity to the period they select is towards the 
manners and costume, not towards the precise order 
of events, the moral causes from which the events 
proceeded, and the physical agencies by which they 
were influenced and controlled. The plan thus 
adopted is unquestionably the more popular and 
attractive, and, being favored by the most illustrious 
writers of historical romance, there is presumptive 
reason for supposing it to be also that which is the 
more agreeable to the art of fiction. 

But he who wishes to avoid the ground pre-occu- 
pied by others, and claim in the world of literature 
some spot, however humble, which he may “ plough 
with his own heifer,” will seek to establish himself 
not where the land is the most fertile, but where it 
is the least enclosed. So, when I first turned my 
attention to Historical Bomance, my main aim was 
to avoid as much as possible those fairer portions of 
the soil that had been appropriated by the first dis- 
coverers. The great author of Ivanhoe, and those 
amongst whom, abroad and at home, his mantle was 
divided, had employed History to aid Bomance ; I 
contented myself with the humbler task to employ 
Bomance in the aid of History — to extract from 
authentic but neglected chronicles, and the unfre- 
quented storehouse of Archaeology, the incidents and 
details that enliven the dry narrative of facts to 
which the general historian is confined — construct 
my plot from the actual events themselves, and place 


PREFACE. Vil 

the staple of such interest as I could create in 
reciting the struggles, and delineating the characters, 
of those who had been the living actors in the real 
drama. For the main materials cf the three His- 
torical Romances I have composed, I consulted the 
original authorities of the time with a care as scru- 
pulous, as if intending to write, not a fiction, but a 
history. And having formed the best judgment I 
could of the events and characters of the age, I 
adhered faithfully to what, as an Historian, I should 
have held to be the true course and true causes of 
the great political events, and the essential attributes 
of the principal agents. Solely in that inward life 
which, not only as apart from the more public and 
historical, but which, as almost wholly unknown, 
becomes the fair domain of the poet, did I claim the 
legitimate privileges of fiction, and even here 1 
employed the agency of the passions only so far a? 
they served to illustrate what I believed to be the 
genuine natures of the beings who had actually lived, 
and to restore the warmth of the human heart to 
the images recalled from the grave. 

Thus, even had I the gifts of my most illustrious 
predecessors, I should be precluded the use of many 
of the more brilliant. I shut myself out from the 
wider scope permitted to their fancy, and denied 
myself the license to choose or select materials, alter 
dates, vary causes and effects according to the con- 
venience of that more imperial fiction which invents 
th 3 Probable where it discards the Real. The mode 
I have adopted has pertaps only this merit, that it is 


viii 


PREFACE. 


my own — mine by discovery and mine by labor 
And if I can raise not the spirits that obeyed the 
great master of romance, nor gain the key to the 
fairy-land that opened to his spell — at least I have 
not rifled the tomb of the wizard to steal my art 
from the book that lies clasped on his breast. 

In treating of an age with which the general 
reader is so unfamiliar as that preceding the Norman 
Conquest, it is impossible to avoid (especially in the 
earlier portions of my tale), those explanations of 
the very character of the time which would have 
been unnecessary if I had only sought in History 
the picturesque accompaniments to Eomance. I have 
to do more than present an amusing picture of 
national manners — detail the dress, and describe the 
banquet. According to the plan I adopt, I have to 
make the reader acquainted with the imperfect fusion 
of races in Saxon England, familiarize him with the 
contests of parties and the ambition of chiefs, show 
him the strength and the weakness of a kindly but 
ignorant church ; of a brave but turbulent aristoc- 
racy ; of a people partially free, and naturally ener- 
getic, but disunited by successive immigrations, and 
having lost much of the proud jealousies of national 
liberty by submission to the preceding conquests of 
the Dane ; acquiescent in the sway of fore ign kings, 
and with that bulwark against invasion which an 
hereditary order of aristocracy usually erects, loosened 
to its very foundations by the copious admixture of 
foreign nobles. I have to present to the reader, here, 
the imbecile priestcraft of the illiterate monk ; there, 


PREFACE 


ix 


tne dark superstition that still consulted the deities 
of the North by runes on the elm bark and adjura- 
tions of the dead. And in contrast to these pictures 
of a decrepit monarchy and a fated race, I have to 
bring forcibly before the reader the vigorous attri- 
butes of the coming conquerors — the stern will and 
deep guile of the Norman chief — the comparative 
knowledge of the rising Norman Church — the nascent 
spirit of chivalry in the Norman vavasours ; a spirit 
destined to emancipate the very people it contributed 
to enslave, associated, as it imperfectly was, with the 
sense of freedom : disdainful, it is true, of the villein, 
but proudly curbing, though into feudal limits, the 
domination of the liege. In a word, I must place 
fully before the reader, if I would be faithful to the 
plan of my work, the political and moral features of 
the age, as well as its lighter and livelier attributes, 
and so lead him to perceive, when he has closed the 
book, why England was conquered, and how England 
survived the Conquest. 

In accomplishing this task, I inevitably incur the 
objections which the task itself raises up — objections 
to the labor it has cost ; to the information which 
the labor was undertaken in order to bestow ; ob- 
jections to passages which seem to interrupt the 
narrative, but which in reality prepare for the inci- 
dents it embraces, or explain the position of the 
persons whose characters it illustrates - — whose fate 
it involves ; objections to the reference to authorities, 
where a fact might be disputed, or mistaken for 
fiction; objections to the use of Saxon words, for 
1* 


X 


PREFACE. 


which no accurate synonyms could he exchanged ; 
objections, in short, to the coloring, conduct, and 
composition of the whole work; objections to all that 
separate it from the common crowd of Eomances, 
and stamp on it, for good or for bad, a character 
peculiarly its own. Objections of this kind I cannot 
remove, though I have carefully weighed them all. 
And with regard to the objection most important to 
story-teller and novel-reader — viz., the dryness of 
some of the earlier portions, though I have thrice 
gone over those passages, with the stern determina- 
tion to inflict summary justice upon every unneces- 
sary line, I must own to my regret that I have found 
but little which it was possible to omit without 
rendering the after narrative obscure, and without 
injuring whatever of more stirring interest the story, 
as it opens, may afford to the general reader of 
Romance. 

As to the Saxon words used, an explanation of all 
those that can be presumed unintelligible to a person 
of ordinary education, is given either in the text or 
a foot-note. Such archaisms are much less numerous 
than certain critics would fain represent them to be; 
and they have rarely indeed been admitted where 
other words could have been employed without a 
glaring anachronism or a tedious periphrase. Would 
it indeed be possible, for instance, to convey a notion 
of the customs and manners of our Saxon forefathers 
without employing words so mixed up with their 
daily usages and modes of thinking, as “ weregdd ” 
and “ niddzring ? ” Would any words from the 


PREFACE. 


x\ 


modern vocabulary suggest tbe same idea or embody 
tbe same meaning ? 

One critic good-humoredly exclaims, “ We have a 
full attendance of thegns and cnehts, but we should 
have liked much better our old friends and approved 
good masters, thanes and knights.” Nothing could 
be more apposite for my justification than the in- 
stances here quoted in censure ; nothing could more 
plainly vindicate the necessity of employing the 
Saxon words. For I should sadly indeed have mis- 
led the reader, if I had used the word knight in an 
age when knights were wholly unknown to the 
Anglo-Saxon ; and cneht no more means what we 
understand by knight, than a templar, in modern 
phrase, means a man in chain mail vowed to celibacy, 
and the redemption of the Holy Sepulchre from the 
hands of the Mussulman. While, since thegn and 
thane are both archaisms, I prefer the former ; not 
only for the same reason that induces Sir Francis 
Palgrave to prefer it, viz., because it is the more 
etymologically correct; but because we take from 
our neighbors the Scotch, not only the word thane, 
but the sense in which we apply it, and that sense is 
not the same that we ought to attach to the various 
and complicated notions of nobility which the Anglo- 
Saxon comprehended in the title of thegn. It has 
been peremptorily said by more than one writer in 
periodicals, that I have overrated the erudition of 
William, in permitting him to know Latin ; nay, to 
nave read the Comments of Caesar at the age of 
eight. Where these gentlemen find the authorities 


xii 


PREFACE. 


to confute my statement I know not ; all I know is, 
that in the statement I have followed the original 
authorities usually deemed the best. And I content 
myself with referring the disputants to a work not 
so difficult to procure as (and certainly more pleasant 
to read than) the old Chronicles. In Miss Strick- 
lands “Lives of the Queens of England" (Matilda 
of Flanders), the same statement is made, and no 
doubt upon the same authorities. 

More surprised should I be (if modern criticism 
had not taught me in all matters of assumption the 
nil admirari), to find it alleged that I have over- 
stated not only the learning of the Norman duke, 
but that which flourished in Normandy under his 
reign ; for I should have thought that the fact of the 
learning which sprung up in the most thriving period 
of that principality ; the rapidity of its growth ; the 
benefits it derived from Lanfranc; the encourage- 
ment it received from William, had been phenomena 
too remarkable in the annals of the age, and in the 
history of literature, to have met with an incredulity 
which the most moderate amount of information 
would have sufficed to dispel. Not to refer such 
skeptics to graver authorities, historical and eccle- 
siastical, in order to justify my representations of 
that learning which, under William the Bastard, 
made the schools of Normandy the popular academies 
of Europe, a page or two in a book so accessible as 
Villemain’s “ Tableau de Moyen Age," will perhaps 
suffice to convince them of the hastiness of their 
censure, and the error of their impressions. 


PREFACE. 


xiii 


It :s stated in the Athenaeum, and, I believe, by a 
writer whose authority on the merits of opera-singers 
I am far from contesting, but of whose competence 
to instruct the world in any other department of 
human industry or knowledge I am less persuaded, 
“ that I am much mistaken when I represent not 
merely the clergy, but the young soldiers and corn • 
tiers of the reign of the Confessor, as well acquainted 
with the literature of Greece and Rome.” 

The remark, to say the least of it, is disingenuous. 
I have done no such thing. This general animad- 
version is only justified by a reference to the pedantry 
of the Norman Mallet de Graville — and it is ex- 
pressly stated in the text that Mallet de Graville 
was originally intended for the Church, and that it 
was the peculiarity of his literary information, rare 
in a soldier (but for which his earlier studies for the 
ecclesiastical calling readily account, at a time when 
the Norman convent of Bee was already so famous 
for the erudition of its teachers, and the number of 
its scholars), that attracted towards him the notice 
of Lanfranc, and founded his fortunes. Pedantry is 
made one of his characteristics (as it generally was 
the characteristic of any man with some pretensions 
to scholarship, in the earlier ages) ; and if he indulges 
in a classical allusion, whether in taunting a courtier 
or conversing with a “Saxon from the wealds of 
Kent,” it is no more out of keeping with the pedantry 
ascribed to him, than it is unnatural in Dominie 
Sampson to rail at Meg Merrilies in Latin, or James 
the First to examine a young courtier in the same 

I.— 2 


PREFACE. 


xiv 

unfamiliar language. Nor should the critic in 
question, when inviting his readers' to condemn me 
for making Mallet de Graville quote Horace, have 
omitted to state that De Graville expressly laments 
that he had never read, nor could even procure a 
copy of the Eoman poet — judging only of the merits 
of Horace by an extract in some monkish author, 
who was equally likely to have picked up his quota- 
tion second-hand. 

So, when a reference is made either by Graville, 
or by any one else in the romance, to Homeric fables 
and personages, a critic who had gone through the 
ordinary education of an English gentleman, would 
never thereby have assumed that the person so re- 
ferring had read the poems of Homer themselves — 
he would have known that Homeric fables, or per- 
sonages, though not the Homeric poems, were made 
familiar, by quaint travesties,* even to the most 
illiterate audience of the Gothic age. It was scarcely 
more necessary to know Homer then than now, in 
order to have heard of Ulysses. The writer in the 
Athenaeum is acquainted with Homeric personages, 
but who on earth would ever presume to assert that 
he is acquainted with Homer ? 

Some doubt has been thrown upon my accuracy in 
ascribing to the Anglo-Saxons the enjoyments of 
certain luxuries (gold and silver plate — the use of 

* And long before the date of the travesty known to us, and 
most popular amongst our mediaeval ancestors, it might be shown 
that some rude notion of Homer’s fable and personages had crept 
into the North. 


PREFACE. 


XV 


glass, &c.) which were extremely rare in an age 
much more recent. There is no ground for that 
doubt ; nor is there a single article of such luxury 
named in the text, for the mention of which I have 
not ample authority. 

I have indeed devoted to this work a degree of 
research which, if unusual to romance, I cannot con- 
sider superfluous when illustrating an age so remote, 
and events unparalleled in their influence over the 
destinies of England. Nor am I without the hope, 
that what the romance-reader at first regards as a 
defect, he may ultimately acknowledge as a merit; 
— forgiving me that strain on his attention by which 
alone I could leave distinct in his memory the action 
and the actors in that solemn tragedy which closed 
on the field of Hastings, over the corpse of the Last 
Saxon King. 


















































































































































































HAROLD, 

THE LAST OF THE SAXON KINGS. 


BOOK FIRST. 

THE NORMAN VISITOR, THE SAXON KING, AND THE DANISH 
PROPHETESS. 


CHAPTER I. 

Merry was the month of May, in the year of our Lord 
1052. Few were the boys, and few the lasses, who over- 
slept themselves on the first of that buxom month. Long 
ere the dawn, the crowds had sought mead and woodland, 
to cut poles and wreathe flowers. Many a mead then lay 
fair and green beyond the village of Charing, and behind 
the isle of Thorney (amidst the brakes and briars of 
which were then rising fast and fair the Hall and Abbey 
of Westminster) many a wood lay dark in the star-light, 
along the higher ground that sloped from the dank 
Strand, with its numerous canals or dykes; — and on 
either side of the great road into Kent: — flutes and 
horns sounded far and near through the green places, and 
laughter and song, and the crash of breaking boughs, 

2 * B (17) 


18 


HAROLD. 


As the dawn came grey up the east, arch and blooming 
faces bowed down to bathe in the May dew. Patient 
oxen stood dozing by the hedge-rows, all fragrant with 
blossoms, till the gay spoilers of the May came forth from 
the woods with lusty poles, followed by girls with laps 
full of flowers, which they had caught asleep. The poles 
were pranked with nosegays, and a chaplet was hung 
round the horns of every ox. Then towards day-break, 
the processions streamed back into the city, through all 
its gates ; boys with their May-gads (peeled willow wands 
twined with cowslips) going before ; and clear through 
the lively din of the horns and flutes, and amidst the 
moving grove of branches, choral voices, singing some 
early Saxon stave, precursor of the later song — 

“We have brought the summer home.” 

Often in the good old days before the Monx-king 
reigned, kings and ealdermen had thus gone forth a-may- 
ing; but these merriments, savoring of heathenesse, that 
good prince misliked : nevertheless the song was as blithe, 
and the boughs were as green, as if king and ealderman 
had walked in the train. 

On the great Kent road, the fairest meads for the cow- 
slip, and the greenest woods for the bough, surrounded 
a large building that had once belonged to some volup- 
tuous Roman, now all defaced and despoiled ; but the 
boys and lasses shunned those demesnes ; and even in 
their mirth, as they passed homeward along the road, and 
saw near the ruined walls, and timbered out-buildings. 


HAROLD. 


19 


grey Druid stones (that spoke of an age before either 
Saxon or Roman invader,) gleaming through the dawn 
— the song was hushed — the very youngest crossed them- 
selves ; and the elder, in solemn whispers, suggested the 
precaution of changing the song into a psalm. For in 
that old building dwelt Hilda, of famous and dark repute ; 
Hilda, who, despite all law and canon, was still believed 
to practise the dismal arts of the Wicca and Morthwyrtha 
(the witch and worshipper of the dead). But once out 
of sight of those fearful precincts, the psalm was for- 
gotten, and again broke, loud, clear, and silvery, the 
joyful chorus. 

So, entering London about sunrise, doors and windows 
were duly wreathed with garlands ; and every village in 
the suburbs had its May-pole, which stood in its place all 
the year. On that happy day, labor rested ; ceorl and 
theowe had alike a holiday to dance, and tumble round 
the May-pole; and thus, on the first of May, — Youth, 
and Mirth, and Music, “ brought the summer home.” 

The next day, you might still see where the buxom 
bands had been ; you might track their way by fallen 
flowers, and green leaves, and the deep ruts made by oxen 
(yoked often in teams from twenty to forty, in the wains 
that carried home the poles) ; and fair and frequent 
throughout the land, from any eminence, you might be- 
hold the hamlet swards still crowned with the May trees, 
and the air still seemed fragrant with their garlands. 

It is on that second day of May, 1052, that my story 
:>pens, at the House of Hilda, the reputed Morthwyrttia 


HAROLD. 


It tood upon a gentle and verdant height; and even 
through all the barbarous mutilation it had undergone 
from barbarian hands, enough was left strikingly to con- 
trast the ordinary abodes of the Saxon. 

The remains of Roman art were indeed still numerous 
throughout England, but it happened rarely that the 
Saxon had chosen his home amidst the villas of those 
noble and primal conquerors. Our first forefathers were 
more inclined to destroy than to adapt. 

By what chance this building became an exception to 
the ordinary rule, it is now impossible to conjecture, but 
from a very remote period it had sheltered successive 
races of Teuton lords. 

The changes wrought in the edifice were mournful and 
grotesque. What was now the Hall, had evidently been 
the atrium ; the round shield, with its pointed boss, the 
spear, sword, and small curved saex of the early Teuton, 
were suspended from the columns on which once had been 
wreathed the flowers ; in the centre of the floor, where 
fragments of the old mosaic still glistened from the hard- 
pressed paving of clay and lime, what now was the fire- 
place, had been the impluvium, and the smoke went sul- 
lenly through the aperture in the roof, made of old to 
receive the rains of heaven. Around the Hall were still 
left the old cubicola or dormitories (small, high, and 
lighted but from the doors), which now served for the 
sleeping-rooms of the humbler guest or the housenold 
servant ; while at the farther end of the Hall, the w’ide 
space between the columns, which had once given ample 


HAROLD. 


2 \ 


rista from graceful awnings into tablinum and viridarium. 
was filled up with rude rubble and Roman bricks, leaving 
but a low, round, arched door, that still led into the tabli- 
num. But that tablinum, formerly the gayest state-room 
of the Roman lord, was now filled with various lumber, 
piles of faggots, and farming utensils. On either side 
01 this desecrated apartment, stretched to the right, the 
old lararium, stripped of its ancient images of ancestor 
and god ; to the left, what had been the gynoecium (wo- 
men’s apartment). 

One side of the ancient peristyle, which was of vast 
extent, was now converted into stabling, sties for swine, 
and stalls for oxen. On the other side was constructed 
a Christian chapel, made of rough oak planks, fastened 
by plates at the top, and with a roof of thatched reeds. 
The columns and wall at the extreme end of the peristyle 
were a mass of ruins, through the gigantic rents of which 
loomed a grassy hillock, its sides partially covered with 
clumps of furze. On this hillock were the mutilated re- 
mains of an ancient Druidical crommel, in the centre of 
which (near a funeral mound, or barrow, with the bau- 
tastean, or grave-stone, of some early Saxon chief at one 
end) had been sacrilegiously placed an altar to Thor, as 
was apparent both from the shape, from a rude, half- 
obliterated, sculptured relief of the god, with his lifted 
hammer, and a few Runic letters. Amidst the temple 
of the Briton the Saxon had reared the shrine of his tri- 
umphant war-god. 

Now still, amidst the ruins of that extreme side of the 


22 


HAROLD. 


peristyle which opened to this hillock were left, first, an 
ancient Roman fountain, that now served to water the 
swine, and next, a small sacellum, or fane to Bacchus (as 
relief and frieze, yet spared, betokened) : thus the eye, at 
one survey, beheld the shrines of four creeds ; the Druid, 
mystical and symbolical; the Roman, sensual, but hu- 
mane ; the Teutonic, ruthless and destroying ; and, latest 
risen and surviving all, though as yet with but little of its 
gentler influence over the deeds of men, the edifice of the 
Faith of Peace. 

Across the peristyle, theowes and swineherds passed to 
and fro : — in the atrium, men of a higher class, half 
armed, were, some drinking, some at dice, some playing 
with huge hounds, or caressing the hawks that stood 
grave and solemn on their perches. 

The lararium was deserted ; the gyncecium was still, as 
m the Roman time, the favored apartment of the female 
portion of the household, and indeed bore the same 
name,* — and with the group there assembled we have 
now to do. 

The appliances of the chamber showed the rank and 
wealth of the owner. At that period the domestic 
luxury of the rich was infinitely greater than has been 
generally supposed. The industry of the women deco- 
rated wall and furniture with needlework and hangings: 
and as a Thegn forfeited his rank if he lost his lands, so 
the higher orders of an aristocracy rather of wealth than 

* “The apartment in which the Anglo-Saxon women lived, was 
tailed Gynecium.” — Fosbrooke, vol. ii. p. 570. 


HAROLD. 


23 


birth, had, usually, a certain portion of superfluous riches, 
which served to flow towards the bazaars of the East 
and the nearer markets of Flanders and Saracenic Spain. 

In this room the walls were draped with silken hang- 
ings richly embroidered. The single window was glazed 
with a dull grey glass.* On a beaufet were ranged horns 
tipped with silver, and a few vessels of pure gold. A 
small circular table in the centre was supported by sym- 
bolical monsters quaintly carved. At one side of the 
wall, on a long settle, some half-a-dozen handmaids were 
employed in spinning ; remote from them, and near the 
window, sat a woman advanced in years, and of a mien 
and aspect singularly majestic. Upon a small tripod be- 
fore her was a Runic manuscript, and an inkstand of ele- 
gant form, with a silver graphium, or pen. At her feet 
reclined a girl somewhat about the age of sixteen, her 
long fair hair parted across her forehead and falling far 
down her shoulders. Her dress w T as a linen under tunic, 
with long sleeves, rising high to the throat, and without 
one of the modern artificial restraints of the shape, the 
simple belt sufficed to show the slender proportions and 

* Glass, introduced about the time of Bede, was more common 
then in the houses of the wealthy, whether for vessels or windows, 
than in the much later age of the gorgeous Plantagenets. Alfred, 
In one of his poems, introduces glass as a familiar illustration : — 

“So oft the mild sea 
With south wind 
As grey glass clear 
Becomes grimly troubled-" 

Sharon Turner. 


Z4 HAROLD. 

delicate outline of the wearer. The color of the dresa 
was of the purest white, but its hems, or borders, were 
richly embroidered. This girl’s beauty was something 
marvellous. In a land proverbial for fair women, it had 
already obtained her the name of “the fair.” In that 
beauty were blended, not as yet without a struggle fo- 
mastery, the two expressions seldom united in one 
countenance, the soft and the noble ; indeed in the whole 
aspect there was the evidence of some internal struggle ; 
the intelligence was not yet complete ; the soul and heart 
were not yet united : and Edith the Christian maid dwelt 
in the home of Hilda the heathen prophetess. The girl’s 
blue eyes, rendered dark by the shade of their long lashes, 
were fixed intently upon the stern and troubled counte- 
nance which was bent upon her own, but bent with that 
abstract gaze which shows that the soul is absent from 
the sight. So sate Hilda, and so reclined her grandchild 
Edith. 

“Grandma,” said the girl in. a low voice and after a 
long pause ; and the sound of her voice so startled the 
handmaids, that every spindle stopped for a moment and 
then plied with renewed activity ; “ Grandma, what trou- 
bles you — are you not thinking of the great Earl and 
his fair sons, now outlawed far over the wide seas ?” 

As the girl spoke, Hilda started slightly, like one 
awakened from a dream; and when Edith had concluded 
her question, she rose slowly to the height of a statue, 
unbowed by her years, and far toweriug above even the 
ordinary standard of men ; and turning from the child, 


HAROLD. 


25 


her eye fell upon the* row of silent maids, each at her 
rapid, uoiseless, stealthy work. “Ho!” said she; hev 
cold and haughty eye gleaming as she spoke; “yester- 
day, they brought home the summer — to-day, ye aid to 
bring home the winter. Weave well — heed well warf 
and w’oof; Skulda* is amongst ye, and her pale fingers 
guide the web ! ” 

The maidens lifted not their eyes, though in every 
cheek the color paled at the words of the mistress. The 
spindles revolved, the thread shot, and again there was 
silence more freezing than before. 

“Askest thou,” said Hilda at length, passing to the 
child, as if the question so long addressed to her ear had 
only just reached her mind; “askest thou if I thought 
of the Earl and his fair sous? — yea, I heard the smith 
welding arms on the anvii, and the hammer of the ship- 
wright shaping strong ribs for the horses of the sea. Ere 
the reaper has bound his sheaves, Earl Godwin will scare 
the Normans in the halls of the Monk King, as the hawk 
scares the brood in the dove-cot. Weave well, heed well 
warf and woof, nimble maidens — strong be the texture, 
for biting is the worm.” 

“What weave they, then, good grandmother ?” asked 
the girl, with wonder and awe in her soft mild eyes. 

“The winding-sheet of the great!” 

Hilda’s lips closed, but her eyes, yet brighter than be« 


* SV.ulda, the Norma, or Fate, that presided over the future. 

I. - - 3 


HAROLD. 


fore, gazed upon space, and her pale hand seemed tracing 
letters, like runes, in the air. 

Then slowly she turned, and looked forth through the 
dull window. “ Give me my coverchief and my staff,” 
said she, quickly. 

Every one of the handmaids, blithe for excuse to quit 
a task which seemed recently commenced, and was cer- 
tainly not endeared to them by the knowledge of its pur- 
pose communicated to them by the lady, rose to obey. 

Unheeding the hands that vied with each other, Hilda 
took the hood, and drew it partially over her brow. 
Leaning lightly on a long staff, the head of which formed 
a raven, carved from some wood stained black, she passed 
into the hall, and thence through the desecrated tablinum, 
into the mighty court formed by the shattered peristyle ; 
there she stopped, mused a moment, and called on Edith. 
The girl was soon by her side. 

“ Come with me. There is a face you shall see but 
twice in life; — this day,” — and Hilda paused, and the 
rigid and almost colossal beauty of her countenance 
softened. 

“And when again, my grandmother?” 

“ Child, put thy warm hand in mine. So ! the vision 
darkens from me. — When again, saidst thou, Edith ? — 
alas, I know not.” 

While thus speaking, Hilda passed slowly by the Ro- 
man fountain and the heathen fane, and ascended the 
little hillock. There, on the opposite side of the summit, 


HAROLD. 


27 


backed by the Druid erommel and the Teuton altar, she 
seated herself deliberately on the sward. 

A few daisies, primroses, and cowslips, grew around : 
these Edith began to pluck. Singing, as she wove, a 
simple song, that, not more by the dialect than the senti- 
ment, betrayed its origin in the ballad of the Norse,* 
which had, in its more careless composition, a character 
quite distinct from the artificial poetry of the Saxons. 
The song may be thus imperfectly rendered : 

“Mirrily the throstle sings 
Amid the merry May, 

The throstle sings but to my ear ; 

My heart is far away! 

Blithely bloometh mead and bank; 

And blithely buds the tree; 

And hark ! — they bring the summer home ! 

It has no home with me ! 

They have outlaw’d him — my Summer! 

An outlaw far away ! — 

The birds may sing, the flowers may bloom, — 

0, give me back my May ! ” 

As she came to the last line, her soft low voice seemed 
to awaken a chorus of sprightly horns and trumpets, and 

* The historians of our literature have not done justice to the 
great influence which the poetry of the Danes has had upon our 
early national muse. I have little doubt but that to that source 
may be traced the minstrelsy of our borders, and the Scottish Low- 
lands ; while, even in the central counties, the example and exer- 
tions of Canute must have had considerable effect on the taste and 
spirit of our Scops. That great prince afforded the amplest encou- 
ragement to Scandinavian poetry, and Olaus names eight Danish 
poets, who flourished at his court. 


28 


HAROLD. 


certain other wind instruments peculiar to the musta of 
that day. The hillock bordered the high road to Lon- 
don — which then wound through wastes of forest land-^ 
and now emerging from the trees to the left appeared a 
goodly company. First came two riders abreast, each 
holding a banner. On the one was depicted the cross 
and five martlets, the device of Edward, afterwards sur- 
named the Confessor : on the other, a plain broad cross 
with a deep border round it, and the streamer shaped 
into sharp points. 

The first was familiar to Edith, who dropped her gar- 
land to gaze on the approaching pageant; the last was 
strange to her. She had been accustomed to see the 
banner of the great Earl Godwin by the side of the Saxon 
king ; and she said, almost indignantly, — 

“ Who dares, sweet grandam, to place banner or pen- 
non where Earl Godwin’s ought to float?” 

“Peace,” said Hilda, “peace, and look.” 

Immediately behind the standard-bearers came two 
figures — strangely dissimilar indeed in mien, in years, in 
bearing : each bore on his left wrist a hawk. The one 
was mounted on a milk-white palfrey, with housings in- 
laid with gold and uncut jewels. Though not really old 
— for he was much on this side of sixty : both his coun- 
tenance and carriage evinced age. His complexion, in- 
deed, was extremely fair, and his cheeks ruddy; but the 
visage was long and deeply furrowed, and from beneath 
a bonnet not dissimilar to those in use among the Scotch, 
streamed hair long and white as snow, mingling with a 


HAROLD. 


29 


large and forked beard. White seemed his chosen color. 
White was the upper tunic clasped on his shoulder with a 
broad ouche or brooch ; white the woollen leggings fitted 
to somewhat emaciated limbs ; and white the mantle, 
though broidered with a broad hem of gold and purple. 
The fashion of his dress was that which well became a 
noble person, but it suited ill the somewhat frail and 
graceless figure of the rider. Nevertheless, as Edith 
saw him, she rose, with an expression of deep reverence 
on her countenance, and saying, “It is our lord the 
king,” advanced some steps down the hillock, and there 
stood, her arms folded on her breast, and quite forgetful, 
in her innocence and youth, that she had left the house 
without the cloak and coverehief which were deemed in- 
dispensable to the fitting appearance of maid and matron 
when they were seen abroad. 

“ Fair sir, and brother mine,” said the deep voice of 
the younger rider, in the Romance or Norman tongue, 
“ I have heard that the small people of whom my neigh- 
bors, the Bretons, tell us much, abound greatly in this 
fair land of yours ; and if I were not by the side of one 
whom no creature unassoilzed and unbaptized dare ap- 
proach, by sweet St. Yalery I should say — yonder stands 
one of those same gentilles fees!” 

King Edward’s eye followed the direction of his com- 
panion’s outstretched hand, and his quiet brow slightly 
contracted as he beheld the young form of Edith stand- 
ing motionless a few yards before him, with the warm 
May wind lifting and playing with her long golden locks. 

3 * 


30 


HAROLD. 


He checked his palfrey, and murmured some Latin words 
which the knight beside him recognized as a prayer, and 
to which, doffing his cap, he added an Amen, in a tone 
of such unctuous gravity, that the royal saint rewarded 
him with a faint approving smile, and an affectionate 
“Bene, bene, Piosissime .” 

Then, inclining his palfrey’s head towards the knoll, 
he motioned to the girl to approach him. Edith, with a 
heightened color, obeyed, and came to the road-side. 
The standard-bearers halted, as did the king and his com- 
rade — the procession behind halted — thirty knights, two 
bishops, eight abbots, all on fiery steeds and in Norman 
garb — squires and attendants on foot — a long and 
pompous retinue — they halted all. Only a stray hound 
or two broke from the rest, and wandered into the forest 
land with heads trailing. 

“Edith, my child,” said Edward, still in Norman- 
French, for he spoke his own language with hesitation, 
and the Romance tongue, which had long been familiar 
to the higher classes in England, had, since his accession, 
become the only language in use at court, and as such 
every one of ‘Eorl-kind’ was supposed to speak it; — 
“ Edith, my child, thou hast not forgotten my lessons, I 
trow ; thou singest the hymns I gave thee, and neglectest 
not to wear the relic round thy neck ?” 

The girl hung her head, and spoke not. 

“ How comes it, then,” continued the king, with a 
voice to which he in vain endeavored to impart an accent 
of severity, “how comes it, O little one, that thou, whose 


HAROLD. 


31 


thoughts should be lifted already above this carnal world, 
and eager for the service of Mary the chaste and blessed, 
standest thus hoodless and alone on the waysides, a mark 
for the eyes of men ? go to, it is naught.” 

Thus reproved, and in presence of so large and bril- 
liant a company, the girl’s color went and came, her 
breast heaved high, but with an effort beyond her age 
she checked her tears, and said meekly, “ My grandmother, 
Hilda, bade me come with her, and I came.” 

“Hilda !” said the king, backing his palfrey with ap- 
parent perturbation, “ but Hilda is not with thee ; I see 
her not.” 

As he spoke, Hilda rose, and so suddenly did her tall 
form appear on the brow of the hill, that it seemed as if 
she had emerged from the earth. With a light and rapid 
stride she gained the side of her grandchild ; and after 
a slight and haughty reverence, said, “ Hilda is here ; 
what wants Edward the king with his servant Hilda ? ” 

“Nought, nought,” said the king, hastily; and some- 
thing like fear passed over his placid countenance ; “ save, 
indeed,” he added, with a reluctant tone, as of that of a 
man who obeys his conscience against his inclination, 
“ that I would pray thee to keep this child pure to thres- 
hold and altar, as is meet for one whom our Lady, the 
Virgin, in due time, will elect to her service.” 

“Not so, son of Etheldred, son of Woden, the last 
descendant of Penda should live, not to glide a ghost 
amidst cloisters, but to rock children for war in their 
father’s shield. Few men are there yet like the men of 


HAROLD. 


32 

old ; and while the foot of the foreigner is on the Saxon 
soil, no branch of the stem of Woden should be nipped 
in the leaf.” 

“Per la resplendar De* bold dame,” cried the knight 
by the side of Edward, while a lurid flush passed over 
his cheek of bronze ; “ but thou art too glib of tongue 
for a subject, and pratest over-much of Woden the Paynim, 
for the lips of a Christian matron.” 

Hilda met the flashing eye of the knight with a brow 
of lofty scorn, on which still a certain terror was visible. 

“ Child,” she said, putting her hand upon Edith’s fair 
locks ; “ this is the man thou shalt see but twice in thy 
life: — look up, and mark well!” 

Edith instinctively raised her eyes, and, once fixed upon 
the knight, they seemed chained as by a spell. His vest, 
of a cramoisay so dark, that it seemed black beside the 
snowy garb of the Confessor, was edged by a deep band 
of embroidered gold ; leaving perfectly bare his firm, full 
throat — firm and full as a column of granite, — a short 
jacket or manteline of fur, pendent from the shoulders, 
left developed in all its breadth a breast, that seemed 
meet to stay the march of an army ; and on the left arm, 
curved to support the falcon, the vast muscles rose, round 
tud gnarled, through the close sleeve. 

In height, he was really but little above the stature of 
many of those present ; nevertheless, so did his port, his 
air, the nobility of his large proportions, fill the eye, that 
he seemed to tower immeasurably above the rest. 


* “By the splendor of God. ! 


HAROLD. 


33 


His countenance was yet more remarkable than his 
form ; still in the prime of youth, he seemed at the first 
glance younger, at the second older, than he was. At 
the first glance younger ; for his face was perfectly shaven, 
without even the moustache which the Saxon courtier, in 
imitating the Norman, still declined to surrender; and 
the smooth visage and bare throat sufficed in themselves 
to give the air of youth to that dominant and imperious 
presence. His small skull-cap left unconcealed his fore- 
head, shaded with short thick hair, uncurled, but black 
and glossy as the wings of a raven. It was on that fore- 
head that time had set its trace ; it was knit into a frown 
over the eyebrows ; lines deep as furrows crossed its 
broad, but not elevated expanse. That frown spoke of 
hasty ire and the habit of stern command ; those furrows 
spoke of deep thought and plotting scheme : the one 
betrayed but temper and circumstance ; the other, more 
noble, spoke of the character and the intellect. The face 
was square, and the regard lion-like ; the mouth — small, 
and even beautiful in outline — had a sinister expression 
in its exceeding firmness ; and the jaw — vast, solid, as if 
bound in iron — showed obstinate, ruthless, determined 
will ; such a jaw as belongs to the tiger amongst beasts, 
and the conqueror amongst men ; such as it is seen in 
the effigies of Caesar, of Cortes, of Napoleon. 

That presence was well calculated to command the 
admiration of women, not less than the awe of men. 
But no admiration mingled with the terror that seized the 
girl as she gazed long and wistful upon the knight 
3 -» o 


34 


HAROLD. 


The fascination of the serpent on the bird held her mute 
and frozen. Never was that face forgotten : often in 
after-life, it haunted her iu the noonday, it frowned upon 
her dreams. 

“ Fair child,” said the knight, fatigued at length by 
the obstinacy of the gaze, while that smile peculiar to 
th )se who have commanded men relaxed his brow, and 
restored the native beauty to his lip, “ fair child, learn 
not from thy peevish grandam so uncourteous a lesson as 
hate of the foreigner. As thou growest into womanhood, 
know that Norman knight is sworn slave to lady fair; ” 
and, doffing his cap, he took from it an uncut jewel, set 
in Byzantine filagree work. “ Hold out thy lap, my child ; 
and when thou hearest the foreigner scoffed, set this 
bauble in thy locks, and think kindly of William, Count 
of the Normans.”* 

He dropped the jewel on the ground as he spoke ; for 
Edith, shrinking and unsoftened towards him, held no lap 
to receive it ; and Hilda, to whom Edward had been 
speaking in a low voice, advanced to the spot and struck 
the jewel with her staff under the hoofs of the King’s 
palfrey. 

“ Son of Emma, the Norman woman, who sent thy 


* It is noticeable that the Norman dukes did not call themselves 
Counts or Dukes of Normandy, but of the Normans ; and the first 
Anglo-Norman kings, till Richard the First, styled themselves Kings 
of the English, not of England. In both Saxon and Norman 
chronicles, William usually bears the title of Count (Comes), but iu 
this tale he will be generally called Duke, as a title more familiar 
to us 


HAROLD. 


J5 


youth into exile, trample on the gifts of thy Norman 
kinsman. And if, as men say, thou art of such gifted 
holiness that Heaven grants thy hand the power to heal, 
and thy voice the power to curse, heal thy country, and 
curse the stranger I ” 

She extended her right arm to William as she spoke, 
and such was the dignity of her passion, and such its 
force, that an awe fell upon all. Then dropping her hood 
'over her face, she slowly turned away, regained the sum- 
mit of the knoll, and stood erect beside the altar of the 
Northern god, her face invisible through the hood drawn 
completely over it, and her form motionless as a statue. 

“ Ride on/’ said Edw^ard, crossing himself. 

“Now by the bones of St. Valery,” said William, after 
a pause, in which his dark keen eye noted the gloom upon 
the King’s gentle face, “ it moves much my simple wonder 
how even presence so saintly can hear without wrath 
words so unleal and foul. Gramercy, ’an the proudest 
dame in Normandy (and I take her to be wife to my 
stoutest baron, William Fitzosborne), had spoken thus 
to me ” 

“ Thou wouldst have done as I, my brother,” interrupted 
Edward ; “ prayed to our Lord to pardon her, and rode 
on pitying.” 

William’s lip quivered with ire, yet he curbed the reply 
that sprang to it, and he looked with affection genuinely 
more akin to admiration than scorn, upon his fellow prince. 
For, fierce and relentless as the Duke’s deeds were, tiia 
faith was notably sincere ; and while this made, inueeu. 


36 


HAROLD. 


the prince's chief attraction to the pious Edward, so on 
the other hand, this bowed the Duke in a kind of involun- 
tary and superstitious homage to the man who sought to 
square deeds to faith. It is ever the case with stern and 
stormy spirits, that the meek ones which contrast them 
steal strangely into their affections. This principle of 
human nature can alone account for the enthusiastic de 
votion which the mild sufferings of the Savior awoke in 
the fiercest exterminators of the North. In proportion, 
often, to the warrior’s ferocity, was his love to that Divine 
model, at whose sufferings he wept, to whose tomb he 
wandered barefoot, and whose example of compassionate 
forgiveness he would have thought himself the basest of 
men to follow ! 

“Now, by my Halidame, I honor and love thee, Ed- 
ward,” cried the Dake, with a heartiness more frank than 
was usual to him ; “ and were I thy subject, woe to man 
or woman that wagged tongue to wound thee by a breath 
But who and what is this same Hilda ? one of thy kith 
and kin ? — surely not less than kingly blood runs so bold ? n 

“ William, Men dime,” * said the King, “ it is true that 
Hilda, whom the saints assoil, is of kingly blood, though 
not of our kingly line. It is feared,” added Edward, in 
a timid whisper, as he cast a hurried glance around him, 
“ that this unhappy woman has ever been more addicted 

* The few expressions borrowed occasionally from the Romance 
tongue, to give individuality to the speaker, will generally be trans- 
lated into modern French ; for the same reason as Saxon is rendered 
into modern English, viz. that the words may be intelligible to thf 
reader. 


HAROLD. 


to the rites of her pagan ancestors than to those of Holy 
Church ; and men do say that she hath thus acquired from 
fiend or charm secrets devoutly to be eschewed by the 
righteous. Nathless, let us rather hope that her mind is 
somewhat distraught with her misfortunes. ” 

The King sighed, and the Duke sighed too, but the 
Duke’s sigh spoke impatience. He swept behind him a 
stern and withering look towards the proud figure of 
Hilda, still seen through the glades, and said in a sinister 
voice : “ Of kingly blood ; but this witch of Woden hath 
no sons or kinsmen, I trust, to pretend to the throne of 
the Saxon ? ” 

“ She is sibbe to Githa wife of Godwin,” answered the 
King, “ and that is her most perilous connection ; for the 
banished Earl, as thou knowest, did not pretend to fill 
the throne, but he was content with nought less than 
governing our people.” 

The King then proceeded to sketch an outline of the 
history of Hilda, but his narrative was so deformed both 
by his superstitions and prejudices, and his imperfect in- 
formation in all the leading events and characters in his 
own kingdom, that we will venture to take upon ourselves 
his task ; and while the train ride on through glade and 
mead, we will briefly narrate, from our own special 
sources of knowledge, the chronicle of Hilda, the Scan, 
dinavian Yala. 


I. — 4 


88 


HAROLD. 


CHAPTER II. 

A magnificent race of men were those war sons of the 
old North, whom our popular histories, so superficial iu 
their accounts of this age, include in the common name 
of the “Danes.” They replunged into barbarism the 
nations over which they swept ; but from that barbarism 
they reproduced the noblest elements of civilization. 
Swede, Norwegian, and Dane, differing in some minor 
points, when closely examined, had yet one common 
character viewed at a distance. They had the same pro- 
digious energy, the same passion for freedom, individual 
and civil, the same splendid errors in the thirst for fame 
and the “ point of honor ; ” and above all, as a main cause 
of civilization, they were wonderfully pliant and mallea- 
ble in their admixtures with the people they overran. 
This is their true distinction from the stubborn Celt, who 
refuses to mingle, and disdains to improve. 

Frankes, the archbishop, baptized Rolf-ganger ; * and 
within a little more than a century afterwards, the de- 
scendants of those terrible heathens, who had spared 
neither priest or altar, were the most redoubtable de- 
fenders of the Christian Church ; their old language for- 
gotten (save by a few in the town of Bayeux), their 


* ‘‘Roman de Rou,” part i. v. 1914 


HAROLD. 


39 


ancestral names* (save among a few of the noblest', 
changed into French titles, and little else but the in- 
domitable valor of the Scandinavian remained unaltered 
amongst the arts and manners of the Frankish-Norman. 

In like manner their kindred tribes, who had poured 
Into Saxon England, to ravage and lay desolate, had no 
sooner obtained from Alfred the Great permanent homes, 
'than they became perhaps the most powerful part of the 
Anglo-Saxon population. f At the time our story opens, 
these Northmen, under the common name of Danes, were 

* The reason why the Normans lost their old names is to be 
found in their conversion to Christianity. They were baptized ; 
and Franks, as their godfathers, gave them new appellations. Thus, 
Charles the Simple insists that Rolf-ganger shall change his law 
(creed), and his name, and Rolf or Rou is christened Robert. A 
few of those who retained Scandinavian names at the time of the 
Conquest will be cited hereafter. 

f Thus in 991, about a century after the first settlement, the 
Danes of East Anglia gave the only efficient resistance to the host 
of the Vikings under Jnstin and Gurthmund; and Brithnoth, 
celebrated by the Saxon poet, as a Saxon, par excellence the heroic 
defender of his native soil, was, in all probability, of Danish de- 
scent. Mr. Laing, in his preface to his translation of the Heim- 
skringla, truly observes, “ that the rebellions against William the 
Conqueror, and his successors, appear to have been almost always 
raised, or mainly supported, in the counties of recent Danish 
descent, not in those peopled by the old Anglo-Saxon race.” 

The portion of Mercia, consisting of the burghs of Lancaster, 
Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, and Derby, became a Danish State 
in a. d. 877 ; — East Anglia, consisting of Cambridge, Suffolk, Nor- 
folk, and the Isle of Ely, in a. d. 879-80; — and the vast territory 
of Northumbria, extending all north the Humber, into all that part 
of Scotland south of the Frith, in a. d. 876. — See Palgrave’s 
Commonwealth. But, beside their more allotted settlements, the 
Danes were interspersed as land-owners all over England. 


H A R 0 L D . 


10 

peaceably settled in no less than fifteen * counties in 
England ; their nobles abounded in towns and cities be- 
yond the boundaries of those counties which bore the 
distinct appellation of Danelagh. They w'ere numerous 
in London : in the precincts of which they had their own 
burial-place, to the chief municipal court of which they 
gave their own appellation — the Hustings.*)* Their 
power iii the national assembly of the Witau had decided 
the choice of kings. Thus, with some differences of law 
and dialect, these once-turbulent invaders had amalga- 
mated amicably with the native race.J And to this day, 
the gentry, traders, and farmers of more than one-third 
of England, and in those counties most confessed to be 
?n the van of improvement, descend, from Saxon mothers 
_*deed, but from Yiking fathers. There was in reality 
little difference in race between the Norman knight of 
the time of Henry I. and the Saxon franklin of Norfolk 
and York. Both on the mother’s side would most 
probably have been Saxon, both on the father’s would 
have traced to the Scandinavian. 


* Bromton Chron. — viz., Essex, Middlesex, Suffolk, Norfolk, 
Herts, Cambridgeshire, Hants, Lincoln, Notts, Derby, Northamp- 
ton, Leicestershire, Bucks, Beds, and the vast territory called 
Northumbria. 

f Palgrave’s History of England, p. 315. 

J The laws collected by Edward the Confessor, and in later times 
so often and so fondly referred to, contain many introduced by the 
Danes, which had grown popular with the Saxon people. Much 
which we ascribe to the Normal Conqueror, pre-existed in the 
Anglo-Danish, and may be found both in Normandy, and parts of 
Scandinavia, to this day. — See Hakewell’s Treatise on the Anti- 
quity of Laws in this Island , in Hearne’s Curious Discourses. 


HAROLD. 


41 


But though this character of adaptability was general, 
exceptions in some points were necessarily found, md 
these were obstinate in proportion to the adherence to 
the old pagan faith, or the sincere conversion to Christi- 
anity. The Norwegian chronicles, and passages in our 
own history, show how false and hollow was the assumed 
Christianity of many of those fierce Odin-worshippers. 
They willingly enough accepted the outward sign of 
baptism, but the holy water changed little of the inner 
man. Even Harold, the son of Canute, scarce seventeen 
years before the date we have now entered, being unable 
to obtain from the Archbishop of Canterbury — who had 
espoused the cause of his brother Hardicanute — the con- 
secrating benediction, lived and reigned as one “ who had 
abjured Christianity.”* 

The priests, especially on the Scandinavian continent, 
were often forced to compound with their grim converts, 
by indulgence to certain habits, such as indiscriminate 
polygamy. To eat horse-flesh in honor of Odin, and to 
marry wives ad libitum , were the main stipulations of the 
neophytes. And the puzzled monks, often driven to a 
choice, yielded the point of the wives, but stood firm on 
the graver article of the horse-flesh. 

With their new religion, very imperfectly understood, 
even when genuinely received, they retained all that host 
of heathen superstition which knits itself with the most 
obstinate instincts in the human breast. Not many yea s 


* Palgrave’s History of England, p. 322. 

4* 


- ? 


42 


HAROLD. 


before the reign of the Confessor, the laws of the great 
Canute against witchcraft and charms, the worship of 
stones, fountains, runes by ash and elm, and the incanta- 
tions that do homage to the dead, were obviously rather 
intended to apply to the recent Danish converts, than to 
the Anglo-Saxons, already subjugated for centuries, body 
and soul, to the domination of the Christian monks. 

Hilda, a daughter of the royalty of Denmark, and 
cousin to Githa (niece to Canute, whom that king had 
bestowed in second spousals upon Godwin), had come 
over to England with a fierce Jarl, her husband, a year 
after Canute’s accession to the throne — both converted 
nominally, both secretly believers in Thor and Odin. 

Hilda’s husband had fallen in one of the actions in the 
Northern seas, between Canute and St. Olave, King of 
Norway (that saint himself, by the bye, a most ruthless 
persecutor of his forefathers’ faith, and a most unqualified 
practical asserter of his heathen privilege to extend his 
domestic affections beyond the severe pale which should 
have confined them to a single wife. His natural son 
Magnus then sat on the Danish throne). The Jarl died 
as he had wished to die, the last man on board his ship, 
with the soothing conviction that the Yalkyrs would bear 
him to Valhalla. 

Hilda was left with an only daughter, whom Canute 
bestowed on Ethelwolf, a Saxon earl of large domains, 
and tracing his descent from Penda, that old king of 
Mercia who refused to be converted, but said so discreetly, 
“ that he had no objection to his neighbors being Chris- 


HAROLD. 


43 


tians, if they would practise that peace and forgiveness 
which the monks told him were the elements of the faith.” 

Ethelwolf fell under the displeasure of Hardicanute, 
perhaps because he was more Saxon than Danish ; and 
though that savage king did not dare openly to arraign 
him before the Witan, he gave secret orders by which he 
was butchered on his own hearth-stone, in the arms of his 
wife, who died shortly afterwards of grief and terror. 
The only orphan of this unhappy pair, Edith, was thus 
consigned to the charge of Hilda. 

It was a necessary and invaluable characteristic of that 
“ adaptability ” which distinguished the Danes, that they 
transferred to the land in which they settled all the love 
they had borne to that of their ancestors ; and so far as 
attachment to soil was concerned, Hilda had grown no 
ess in heart an Englishwoman, than if she had been born 
and reared amidst the glades and knolls from which the 
smoke of her hearth rose through the old Roman com- 
pluvium. 

But in all else she was a Dane. Dane in her creed and 
her habits — Dane in her intense and brooding imagina- 
tion — in the poetry that filled her soul, peopled the air 
with spectres, and covered the leaves of the trees with 
charms. Living in austere seclusion after the death of 
her lord, to whom she had borne a Scandinavian woman’s 
devoted but heroic love, — sorrowing indeed for his death, 
but rejoicing that he fell amidst the feast of ravens, — her 
mind settled more and more, year by year, and day by 
day, upon those visions of the unknown world, which, in 


44 


HAROLD. 


every faith, conjure up the companions of solitude and 
grief. 

Witchcraft in the Scandinavian North assumed many 
forms, and was connected by many degrees. There was 
the old and withered hag, on whom, in our later mediaeval 
ages, the character was mainly bestowed ; there was the 
terrific witch-wife, or wolf-witch, who seems wholly apart 
from human birth and attributes, like the weird sisters of 
Macbeth — creatures who entered the house at night, and 
seized warriors to devour them, who might be seen gliding 
over the sea, with the carcase of the wolf dripping blood 
from their giant jaws ; and there was the more serene, 
classical, and awful vala, or sibyl, who, honored by chiefs 
and revered by nations, foretold the future, and advised 
the deeds of heroes. Of these last, the Norse chronicles 
tell us much. They were often of rank and wealth, they 
were accompanied by trains of handmaids and servants — 
kings led them (when their counsel was sought) to the 
place of honor in the hall — and their heads were sacred, 
as those of ministers to the gods. 

This last state in the grisly realm of the Wig-laer 
(wizard-lore) was the one naturally appertaining to the 
high rank, and the soul lofty though blind and perverted, 
of the daughter of warrior-kings. All practice of the 
art to which now for long years she had devoted herself, 
that touched upon the humble destinies of the vulgar, 
the child of Odin* haughtily disdained. Her reveries 

* The name of this god is spelt Odin, when referred to as the 
object of Scandinavian worship ; Woden, when applied directly to 
the deity of the Saxons. 


HAROLD. 


45 


were upon the fate of kings and kingdoms ; she aspired 
to save or to rear the dynasties which should rule the 
races yet unborn. In youth proud and ambitious, — 
common faults with her countrywomen, — on her entrance 
into the darker world, she carried with her the prejudices 
and passions that she had known in that colored by the 
external sun. 

All her human affections were centered in her grand- 
child Edith, the last of a race royal on either side. Her 
researches into the future had assured her, that the life 
and death of this fair child were entwined with the fates 
of a king, and the same oracles had intimated a myste- 
ous and inseparable connection between her own shat- 
ared house and the flourishing one of Earl Godwin, the 
spouse of her kinswoman Githa ; so that with this great 
family she was intimately bound by the links of super- 
stition as by the ties of blood. The eldest-born of God- 
win, Sweyn, had been at first especially her care and her 
favorite ; and he, of more poetic temperament than his 
brothers, had willingly submitted to her influence. But 
of all the brethren, as will be seen hereafter, the career 
of Sweyn had been most noxious and ill-omened, and at 
that moment, while the rest of the house carried with it 
into exile the deep and indignant sympathy of England, 
no man said of Sweyn, “God bless him!” 

But as the second son, Harold, had grown from child- 
hood into youth, Hilda had singled him out with a pre- 
ference even more marked than that she had bestowed 
upon Sweyn. The stars and the runes assured her of his 


46 


HAROLD 


future greatness, and the qualities and talents of the 
young Earl had, at the very onset of his career, con 
firmed the accuracy of their predictions. Her interest in 
Harold became the more intense, partly because whenever 
she consulted the future for the lot of her grandchild 
Edith, she invariably found it associated with the fate of 
Harold — partly because all her arts had failed to pene- 
trate beyond a certain point of their joint destinies, and 
left her mind agitated and perplexed between hope and 
terror. As yet, however, she had wholly failed in gain- 
ing any ascendency over the young Earl’s vigorous and 
healthful mind ; and though before his exile, he came 
more often than any of Godwin’s sons to the old Roman 
house, he had smiled with proud incredulity at her vague 
prophecies, and rejected all her offers of aid from invisi- 
ble agencies with the calm reply — “The brave man wants 
no charms to encourage him to his duty, and the good 
man scorns all warnings that would deter him from ful- 
filling it.” 

Indeed, though Hilda’s magic was not of the malevo- 
lent kind, and sought the source of its oracles not in 
fiends but gods (at least the gods in whom she believed) 
it was noticeable that all over whom her influence had 
prevailed had come to miserable and untimely ends ; — 
not alone her husband and her son-in-law (both of whom 
had been as wax to her counsel), but such other chiefs as 
rank or ambition permitted to appeal to her lore. Ne- 
vertheless, such was the ascendency she had gained over 
the popular mind, that it would have beer dangerous in 


HAROLD. 


47 


the highest degree to put into execution against her the 
laws condemnatory of witchcraft. In her, all the more 
powerful Danish families reverenced, and would have 
protected, the blood of their ancient kings, and the widow 
of one of their most renowned heroes. Hospitable, liberal, 
and beneficent to the poor, and an easy mistress over 
numerous ceorls, while the vulgar dreaded, they would 
yet have defended her. Proofs of her art it would have 
been hard to establish ; hosts of compurgators to attest 
her innocence would have sprung up. Even if subjected 
to the ordeal, her gold could easily have bribed the priests 
with whom the power of evading its dangers rested. And 
with that worldly wisdom which persons of genius in their 
wildest chimeras rarely lack, she had already freed her- 
self from the chance of active persecution from the 
Church, by ample donations to all the neighboring mo- 
nasteries. 

Hilda, in fine, was a woman of sublime desires and 
extraordinary gifts ; terrible, indeed, but as the passive 
agent of the Fates she invoked, and rather commanding 
for herself a certain troubled admiration, and mysterious 
pity ; no fiend-hag, beyond humanity, in malice and in 
power, but essentially human, even when aspiring most 
to the secrets of a god. Assuming, for the moment, that 
by the aid of intense imagination, persons of a peculiar 
idiosyncrasy of nerves and temperament might attain to 
such dim affinities with a world beyond our ordinary 
senses, as forbid entire rejection of the magnetism and 
magic of old times— it was on no foul and mephitic pool, 


48 


HAROLD. 


overhung with the poisonous night-shade, and excluded 
from the beams of heaven, but on the living stream on 
which the star trembled, and beside whose banks the 
green herbage waved, that the demon shadows fell dark 
and dread. 

Thus safe and thus awful, lived Hilda ; and under her 
care, a rose beneath the funereal cedar, bloomed her 
grandchild Edith, goddaughter of the Lady of England. 

It was the anxious wish, both of Edward and his virgin 
wife, pious as himself, to save this orphan from the con- 
tamination of a house more than suspected of heathen 
faith, and give to her youth the refuge of the convent. 
But this, without her guardian’s consent or her own ex- 
oressed will, could not be legally done ; and Edith as yet 
had expressed no desire to disobey her grandmother, who 
treated the idea of the convent with lofty scorn. 

This beautiful child grew up under the influence, as it 
were, of two contending creeds ; all her notions on both 
were necessarily confused and vague. But her heart was 
so genuinely mild, simple, tender, and devoted, — there 
was in her so much of the inborn excellence of the sex, 
that in every impulse of that heart struggled for clearer 
light and for purer air the unquiet soul. In manner, in 
thought, and in person, as yet almost an infant, deep in 
her heart lay yet one woman’s secret, known scarcely to 
herself, but which taught her, more powerfully than Hilda’s 
proud and scoffing tongue, to shudder at the thought of 
the barren cloister and the eternal vow. 


HAROLD. 


49 


CHAPTER III. 

While King Edward was narrating to the Norman 
Duke all that he knew, and all that he knew not, of 
Hilda’s history and secret arts, the road w r ound through 
lands as wild and wold-like as if the metropolis of Eng- 
land lay a hundred miles distant. Even to this day, 
patches of such land in the neighborhood of Norwood, 
may betray what the country was in the old time : — when 
a mighty forest, ‘ abounding with wild beasts’ — ‘ the bull 
and the boar’ — skirted the suburbs of London, and af- 
forded pastime to king and tliegn. For the Norman kings 
have been maligned by the popular notion, that assigns 
to them all the odium of the forest laws. Harsh and 
severe were those laws in the reign of the Anglo-Saxon ; 
as harsh and severe, perhaps, against the ceorl and the 
poor man, as in the days of Rufus, though more mild 
unquestionably to the nobles. To all beneath the rank 
of abbot and thegn, the king’s woods were made, even 
by the mild Confessor, as sacred as the groves of the 
Druids : and no less penalty than loss of life was incurred 
by the low-born huntsman who violated their recesses. 

Edward’s only mundane passion was the chase ; and a 
day rarely passed, but what after mass he went forth with 
hawk or hound. So that, though the regular season for 

I.— 5 


i) 


50 


HAROLD. 


hawking did not commence till October, he had ever on 
his wrist some young falcon to essay, or some old favorite 
to exercise. And now, just as William was beginning to 
grow weary of his good cousin’s prolix recitals, the houndn 
suddenly gave tongue, and from a sedge-grown pool by 
the wav-side, with solemn wing and harsh boom, rose a 
bittern. 

“ Holy St. Peter ! ” exclaimed the Saint king, spurring 
his palfrey, and loosing his famous Peregrine falcon.* 
William was not slow in following that animated exam- 
ple, and the whole company rode at half speed across 
the rough forest-land, straining their eyes upon the soar- 
ing quarry, and the large wheels of the falcons. Riding 
thus, with his eyes in the air, Edward was nearly pitched 
over his palfrey’s head, as the animal stopped suddenly, 
checked by a high gate, set deep in a half-embattled wall 
of brick and rubble. Upon this gate sat, quite unmoved 
and apathetic; a tall ceorl, or laborer, while behind it was 
a gazing curious group of men of the same rank, clad in 
those blue tunics of which our peasant’s smock is the 
successor, and leaning on scythes and flails. Sour and 
ominous were the looks they bent upon that Norman 
cavalcade. The men were at least as well clad as inose 
of the same condition are now ; and their robust liml » 
and ruddy cheeks showed no lack of the fare that sup- 
ports labor. Indeed, the working-man of that day, if not 

* The Peregrine hawk built on the rocks of Llandudno, and this 
breed was celebrated, even to the days of Elizaleth. Burleigh 
thanks one of the Mostyns for a cast of hawks from Llandudno. 


HAROLD. 


51 


one of the absolute theowes, or slaves, was, physically 
speaking, better off, perhaps, than he has ever since been 
in England, more especially if he appertained to some 
wealthy thegn of pure Saxon lineage, whose very title of 
lord came to him in his quality of dispenser of bread ; * 
and these men had been ceorls under Harold, son of God- 
win, now banished from the land. 

V Open the gate, open quick, my merry men,” said the 
gentle Edward (speaking in Saxon, though with a strong 
foreign accent), after he had recovered his seat, murmured 
a benediction, and crossed himself three times. The men 
stirred not. 

“ No horse tramps the seeds we have sown for Harold 
the Earl to reap ; ” said the ceorl doggedly, still seated 
on the gate. And the group behind him gave a shout 
of applause. 

Moved more than ever he had been known to be be- 
fore, Edward spurred his steed up to the boor, and lifted 
his hand. At that signal, twenty swords flashed in the 
air behind, as the Norman nobles spurred to the place. 
Putting back with one hand his fierce attendants, Edward 
shook the other at the Saxon. “ Knave, knave,” he cried, 
“I would hurt you, if I could!” 

There was something in these words, fated to drift 
down into history, at once ludicrous and touching. The 
Normans saw them only in the former light, and turned 

* Hlaf, loaf, — Hlaford, lord, giver of bread ; Hleafdian, lady, 
server of bread. — Verstegas 


52 


HAROLD. 


aside to conceal their laughter ; the Saxon felt them in 
the latter and truer sense, and stood rebuked. That 
great king, whom he now recognized, with all those 
drawn swords at his back, could not do him hurt; that 
king had not the heart to hurt him. The ceorl sprang 
from the gate, and opened it, bending low. 

“ Ride first, Count William, my cousin,” said the king, 
calmly. 

The Saxon ceorl’s eyes glared as he heard the Nor- 
man’s name uttered in the Norman tongue, but he kept 
open the gate, and the train passed through, Edward 
lingering last. Then said the king, in a low voice, — 

“ Bold man, thou spokest of Harold the Earl and his 
harvests ; knowest thou not that his lands have passed 
from him, and that he is outlawed, and his harvests are 
not for the scythes of his ceorls to reap ?” 

“ May it please you, dread Lord and King,” replied 
the Saxon, simply, these lands that were Harold the 
Earl’s, are now Clapa’s, the sixhmndman’s.” 

“ How is that ? ” quoth Edward, hastily ; “ we gave 
them neither to sixhgendman nor to Saxon. All the 
lands of Harold hereabout were divided amongst sacred 
abbots and noble chevaliers — Normans all.” 

“ Fulke the Norman had these fair fields, yon orchards 
and tynen ; Fulke sold them to Clapa, the Earl’s sixhsend- 
man, and what in mancusses and pence Clapa lacked of 
the price, we, the ceorls of the Earl, made up from our 
own earnings in the Earl’s noble service. And this very 


HAROLD. 


63 


day, in token thereof, have we quaffed the bedden-ale.* 
Wherefore, please God and our Lady, we hold these 
lands part and parcel with Clapa ; and when Earl Harold 
comes again, as come he will, here at least he will have 
his own.” 

Edward, who, despite a singular simplicity of character, 
which at times seemed to border on imbecility, was by no 
means wanting in penetration when his attention was 
fairly roused, changed countenance at this proof of rough 
and homely affection on the part of these men to his 
banished earl and brother-in-law. He mused a little 
while in grave thought, and then said, kindly — 

“Well, man, I think not the worse of you for loyal 
love to your thegn, but there are those who would do so, 
and I advise you, brother-like, that ears and nose are in 
peril if thou talkest thus indiscreetly.” 

“ Steel to steel, and hand to hand,” said the Saxon, 
bluntly, touching the long kuife in his leathern belt, “ and 
he who sets gripe on Sexwolf, son of Elfhelm, shall pay 
his weregeld twice over.” 

“Forewarned, foolish man, thou art forewarned. 
Peace,” said the king ; and, shaking his head, he rode 
on to join the Normans, who now, in a broad field, where 
the corn sprang green, and which they seemed to delight 
in wantonly trampling, as they curveted their steeds to 

* Bedden-ale. When any man was set up in his estate by the 
contributions of his friends, those friends were bid to a feast, and 
the ale so drunk was called the bedden-ale, from bedden, to pray, 
or to bid. — (See Brand’s Pop . Antiq.) 

5 * 


54 


HAROLD. 


and fro, watched the movements of the bittern and the 
pursuit of the two falcons. 

“A wager, Lord King ! ” said a prelate, whose strong 
family likeness to William proclaimed him to be the duke’s 
bold and haughty brother, Odo,* Bishop of Baycux ; — 
“ a wager. My steed to your palfrey that the duke’s 
falcon first fixes the bittern.” 

“ Holy father,” answered Edward, in that slight change 
of voice which alone showed his displeasure, “ these wagers 
all savor of heathenesse, and our canons forbid them to 
monef and priest. Go to, it is naught.” 

The bishop, who brooked no rebuke, even from his 
terrible brother, knit his brows, and was about to make 
no gentle rejoinder, when William, whose profound craft 
or sagacity was always at watch, lest his followers should 
displease the king, interposed, and, taking the word out 
of the prelate’s mouth, said — 

“ Thou reprovest us well, sir and king ; we Normans 
are too inclined to such levities. And see, your falcon is 
first in pride of place. By the bones of St. Yalery, how 
nobly he towers 1 See him cover the bittern ! — see him 
rest on the wing ! Down he swoops ! Gallant bird ! ” 

“ With his heart split in two on the bittern’s bill,” said 
the bishop ; and down, rolling one over the other, fell 
bittern and hawk, while William’s Norway falcon, smaller 

* Herleve (Arlotta), William’s mother, married Herluin de Con- 
teville, after the death of Duke Robert, and had by him two sons, 
Robert Count of Mortain, and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. — O rd. 
Vital, lib. vii. 
f Mone , monk. 


HAROLD. 


bb 


of size than the king’s, descended rapidly, and hovered 
over the two. Both were dead. 

“ I accept the omen,” muttered the gazing duke ; “ let 
the natives destroy each other 1 ” He placed his whistle 
to his lips, and his falcon flew back to his wrist. 

“ Now home,” said King Edward. 


CHAPTER IV. 

The royal party entered London by the great bridge 
which divided Southwark from the capital ; and we must 
pause to gaze a moment on the animated scene which the 
immemorial thoroughfare presented. 

The whole suburb before entering Southwark was rich 
in orchards and gardens, lying round the detached houses 
of the wealthier merchants and citizens. Approaching 
the river-side to the left, the eye might see the two cir- 
cular spaces set apart, the one for bear, the other for 
bull-baiting. To the right, upon a green mound of waste, 
within sight of the populous bridge, the glee-men were 
exercising their art. Here one dexterous juggler threw 
three balls and three knives alternately in the air, catch- 
ing them one by one as they fell.* There, another wns 
gravely leading a great bear to dance on its hind legs, 
while his coadjutor kept time with a sort of flute or 
flageolet. The lazy by-standers, in great concourse. 


* Strutt’s Horda. 


56 


HAROLD. 


stared and laughed ; but the laugh was hushed at the 
tramp of the Norman steeds ; and the famous count by 
the king’s side, as, with a smiling lip, but observant eye, 
he rode along, drew all attention from the bear. 

On now approaching that bridge, which, no! many 
years before, had been the scene of terrible contest be* 
tween the invading Danes and Ethelred’s ally, Olave of 
Norway,* you might still see, though neglected and 
already in decay, the double fortifications that had wisely 
guarded that vista into the city. On both sides of the 
bridge, which was of wood, were forts, partly of timber, 
partly of stone, and breast-works, and by the forts a 
little chapel. The bridge, broad enough to admit twc 
vehicles abreast, f was crowded with passengers, and lively 
with stalls and booths. Here was the favorite spot of 
the popular ballad-singer. J Here too, might be seen 
the swarthy Saracen, with wares from Spain and Afric.§ 

* There is an animated description of this Battle of London 
Bridge,” which gave ample theme to the Scandinavian scalds, in 
Snorro Sturleson : — 

“ London Bridge is broken down ; 

Gold is won and bright renown; 

Shields resounding, 

War horns sounding, 

Hildur shouting in the din, 

Arrows singing, 

Mail-coats ringing, 

Odin makes our Olaf win.” 

Laing’s Iieimskringla , vol. ii. p. 10. 
f Sharon Turner. J Hawkins, vol. ii. p. 94. 

$ Doomsday makes mention of the Moors, and the Germans (the 
Emperors merchants) that were sojourners or setters, in London. 


HAROLD. 


57 


Here, the German merchant from the Steel-yard swept 
along on his way to his suburban home. Here, on some 
holy office, went quick the muffled monk. Here the city 
gallant paused to laugh with the country girl, her basket 
full of May-boughs and cowslips. In short, all bespoke 
that activity, whether in business or pastime, which was 
destined to render that city the mart of the world, and 
which had already knit the trade of the Anglo-Saxon to 
the remoter corners of commercial Europe. The deep 
dark eye of William dwelt admiringly on the bustling 
groups, on the broad river, and the forest of masts which 
rose by the indented marge near Belin’s Gate.* * And 1)6 
to whom, whatever his faults, or rather crimes, to the un- 
fortunate people he not only oppressed but deceived — 
London at least may yet be grateful, not only for chartered 
franchise, f but for advancing, in one short vigorous reign, 

The Saracens at that time were among the great merehnnts of the 
world ; Marseilles, Arles, Avignon, Montpellier, Toulouse, were 
the wonted etapes of their active traders. What civilizers, what 
teachers they were — those same Saracens! How much in arms 
and in arts we owe them ! Fathers of the Provencal poetry, they, 
far more than even the Scandinavian scalds, have influenced the 
literature of Christian Europe. The most ancient chronicle of the 
Cid was written in Arabic, a little before the Cid’s death by two 
cf his pages, who were Mussulmans. The medical science of the 
Moors for six centuries enlightened Europe, and their metaphysics 
were adopted in nearly all the Christian universities. 

* Billingsgate. 

-j- London received a charter from William at the instigation of 
the Norman Bishop of London; but it probably only confirmed the 
previous municipal constitution, since it says briefly, “I grant you 
all to be as law-worthy as ye were in the days of King Edward.” 
The rapid increase, however, of the commercial prosperity and 
5 * 


58 


HAROLD. 


her commerce and wealth, beyond what centuries of Anglo- 
Saxon domination, with its inherent feebleness, had 
effected, exclaimed aloud : — 

“By rood and mass, 0 dear king, thy lot hath fallen 
on a goodly heritage ! ” 

“Hem!” said Edward, lazily; “thou knowest not 
how troublesome these Saxons are. And while thou 
speakest, lo ! in yon shattered walls, built first, they say, 
by Alfred, of holy memory, are the evidences of the 
Danes. Bethink thee how often they have sailed up this 
river. How know I but what the next year the raven 
flag may stream over these waters? Magnus of Den- 
mark hath already claimed my crown as heir to the 
royalties of Canute, and ” (here Edward hesitated) “ God- 
win and Harold, whom alone of my thegns, Dane and 
Northman fear, are far away.” 

“ Miss not them, Edward, my cousin,” cried the duke, 
in haste. “ Send for me, if danger threat thee. Ships 
enow await thy hest in my new port of Cherbourg. And 
I tell thee this for thy comfort, that were I king of the 
English, and lord of this river, the citizens of London 
might sleep from vespers to prime, without fear of the 
Dane. Never again should the raven flag be seen by 
this bridge ! Never, I swear, by the Splendor Divine !” 

Not without purpose spoke William thus stoutly; and 
he turned on the king those glittering eyes ( micantes 

political importance of London after the Conquest, is attested in 
many chronicles, and becomes strikingly evident even on the sur- 
face of history. 


HAROLD. 


59 


oculos), which the chroniclers nave praised and noted. 
For it was his hope and his aim in this visit, that his 
cousin Edward should formally promise him that goodly 
heritage of England. But the king made no rejoinder, 
and they now neared the end of the bridge. 

“What old ruin looms yonder?”* asked William, 
hiding his disappointment at Edward’s silence ; “it seem- 
eth the remains of some stately keape, which, by its 
fashion, I should pronounce Roman.” 

“ Ay ! ” said Edward, “It is said to have been built by 
the Romans ; and one of the old Lombard freemasons 
employed on my new palace of Westminster, giveth that, 
and some others in my domain, the name of the Juillet 
Tower.” 

“ Those Pvomans were our masters in all things gallant 
and wise,” said William ; “ and I predict that, some day 
or other, on this site, a king of England will re-erect 
palace and tower. And yon castle towards the west?” 

“Is the Tower Palatine, where our predecessors have 
lodged, and ourself sometimes ; but the sweet loneliness 
of Thorney Isle, pleaseth me more now.” 

* There seemed good reason for believing that a keep did stand 
where the Tower stands, before the Conquest, and that William’s 
edifice spared some of its remains. In the very interesting letter 
from John Bayford relating to the city of London, (Lei. Collect. 
lviii. ), the writer, a thorough master of his subject, states, that 
“the Romans made a public military way, that of Watling Street, 
from the Tower to Ludgate, in a straight line, at the end of which 
they built stations or citadels, one of which was where the White 
Tower now stands.” Bayford adds that “when the White Tower 
was fitted up for the reception of records, there remained many 
Saxon inscriptions.” 


60 


HAROLD 


Thus talking, they entered London, a rude, dark city 
built mainly of timbered houses ; streets narrow am 
winding ; windows rareiy glazed, but protected chiefly by 
linen blinds ; vistas opening, however, at times into broad 
spaces, round the various convents, where green trees 
grew up behind low palisades. Tall roods, and holy 
images, to which we owe the names of existing thorough- 
fares (Rood-lane and Lady-lane*), where the ways 
crossed, attracted the curious, and detained the pious. 
Spires there were not then, but blunt cone-headed turrets, 
pyramidal, denoting the Houses of God, rose often from 
the low, thatched, and reeded roofs. But every now and 
then, a scholar’s, if not an ordinary eye, could behold the 
relics of Roman splendor, traces of that elder city which 
now lies buried under our thoroughfares, and of which, 
year by year, are dug up the stately skeletons. 

Along the Thames still rose, though much mutilated, 
the wall of Constantine. f Round the humble and bar- 
barous church of St. Paul’s (wherein lay the dust of 
Sebba, that king of the East Saxons who quitted hia 
throne for the sake of Christ, and of Edward’s feeble and 
luckless father, Ethelred), might be seen, still gigantic in 
decay, the ruins of the vast temple of Diana. J Many a 
church, and many a convent, pierced their mingled brick 
and timber work with Roman capital and shaft. Still, 
by the tower, to which was afterwards given the Saracen 
name of Barbican, were the wrecks of the Roman station, 


* Rude-lane. Lad-lane. — Bayford. 
X Camden. 


f Fitzstephen 


HAROLD. 


61 


where cohorts watched night and day, in case of fire 
within or foe without.* 

In a niche, near the Aldersgate, stood the headless 
statue of Fortitude, which monks and pilgrims deemed 
some unknown saint in the old time, and halted to honor. 
And in the midst of Bishopsgate Street, sat on his dese- 
crated throne a mangled Jupiter, his eagle at his feet. 
Many a half-converted Dane there lingered, and mistook 
the Thunderer and the bird for Odin and his hawk By 
Leod-gate (the People’s gate f) still too were seen the 
arches of one of those mighty aqueducts which the Roman 
learned from the Etrurian. And close by the still-yard, 
occupied by “the Emperor’s cheap men” (the German 
merchants), stood, almost entire, the Roman temple, ex- 
taut in the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Without the 
walls, the old Roman vineyards still put forth their green 
leaves and crude clusters, in the plains of East Smith- 
field, in the fields of St. Giles’s, and on the site where 
now stands Hatton Garden. Still massere J and cheap- 
men chaffered and bargained, at booth and stall, in Mart 
Lane, where the Romans had bartered before them. With 
every encroachment on new soil, within the walls and 
without, urn, vase, weapon, human bones, were shovelled 
out, and lay disregarded amidst heaps of rubbish. 

Not on such evidences of the past civilization looked 
the practical eye of the Norman Count; not on things, 

* Bayford, Leland’s Collectanea , p. lviii. 

f Ludgate (Leod-gate). — Verstegan. 

J Massere , merchant, mercer. 

I.— 6 


62 


HAROLD. 


but on men, looked he ; and as silently he rode on from 
street to street, out of those men, stalwart and tall, busy, 
active, toiling, the Man-Ruler saw the Civilization that 
was to come. 

So, gravely through the small city, and over the bridge 
that spanned the little river of the Fleet, rode the train 
along the Strand; to the left, smooth sands; to the 
right, fair pastures below green holts, thinly studded with 
houses ; over numerous cuts and inlets running into the 
river, rode they on. The hour and the season were 
those in which youth enjoyed its holiday, and gay groups 
resorted to the then * fashionable haunts of the Foun- 
tain of Holywell, “streaming forth among glistening 
pebbles.” 

So they gained at length the village of Charing, which 
Edward had lately bestowed on his Abbey of West- 
minster, and which was now filled with workmen, native 
and foreign, employed on that edifice and the contiguous 
palace. Here they loitered awhile at the Mews (where 
the hawks were kept), passed by the rude palace of stone 
and rubble, appropriated to the tributary kings of Scot- 
land J — a gift from Edgar to Kenneth — and finally, 
reaching the inlet of the river, which, winding round the 

* Fitzstephen. 

f Meuse. Apparently rather a hawk hospital, from Muta (Cam- 
den). Du Fresne, in his Glossary, says, Muta is in French Le 
Meue , and a disease to which the hawk was subject on changing its 
feathers. 

i Scotland-yard. — Strype. 


IIARoLD. 


63 


Isle of Thorney (now Westminster), separated the rising 
church, abbey, and palace, of the Saint-king from the 
main land, dismounted — and were ferried across* the 
narrow stream to the broad space round the royal resi- 
dence. 


CHAPTER Y. 

The new palace of Edward the Confessor, the palace 
of Westminster, opened its gates to receive the Saxon 
King and the Norman Duke, remounting on the margin 
of the isle, and now riding side by side. And as the 
duke glanced from brows, habitually knit, first over the 
pile, stately though not yet completed, with its long rows 
of round arched windows, cased by indented fringes and 
fraet (or tooth) work, its sweep of solid columns with 
circling cloisters, and its ponderous towers of simple 
grandeur ; then over the groups of courtiers, with close 
vests, and short mantles and beardless cheeks, that filled 
up the wide space, to gaze in homage on the renowned 
guest, his heart swelled within him, and checking his 
rein, he drew near to his brother of Bayeux, and whis- 
pered : — 

“Is not this already the court of the Norman? Be- 
hold yon nobles and earls, how they mimic our garb I 


* The first bridge that connected Thorney Isle with the main- 
land is said to have been built by Matilda, wife of Henry I. 


64 


HAROLD. 


behold the very stones in yon gate, how they range 
themselves, as if carved by the hand of the Norman 
mason ! Yerily and indeed, brother, the shadow of the 
rising sun rests already on these halls.” 

“ Had England no People,” said the bishop, “England 
were yours already. But saw you not, as we rode along, 
the lowering brows ? and heard you not the angry mur- 
murs ? The villeins are many, and their hate is strong.” 

“ Strong is the roan I bestride,” said the duke ; “ but 
a bold rider curbs it with the steel of the bit, and guides 
it with the goad of the heel.” 

And now as they neared the gate, a band of minstrels 
in the pay of the Norman touched their instruments, and 
woke their song — the household song of the Norman — 
the battle-hymn of Boland, the Paladin of Charles the 
Great. At the first word of the song, the Norman 
knights and youths, profusely scattered amongst the 
Normanized Saxons, caught up the lay, and with spark- 
ling eyes, and choral voices, they welcomed the mighty 
duke into the palace of the last meek successor of Woden. 

By the porch of the inner court the duke flung himself 
from his saddle, and held the stirrup for Edward to dis- 
mount. The king placed his hand gently on his guest’s 
broad shoulder, and, having somewhat slowly reached the 
ground, embraced and kissed him in the sight of the gor- 
geous assemblage ; then led him by the hand towards the 
fair chamber which was set apart for the duke, and so 
left him to his attendants. 

William, lost m thought, suffered himself to be disrobed 


HAROLD. 


65 


in silence ; but when Fitzosborne, his favorite confidant 
and haughtiest baron, who yet deemed himself but- 
honored by personal attendance * n his chief, conducted 
him towards the bath, which adjoined the chamber, he 
drew back, and wrapping round him more closely the 
gown of fur that had been thrown over his shoulders, he 
muttered low, — “Nay, if there be on me yet one speck 
of English dust, let it rest there ! — seizin, Fitzosborne, 
seizin, of the English land.” Then, waving his hand, he 
dismissed all his attendants except Fitzosborne, and 
Rolf, Earl of Hereford,* nephew to Edward, but French 
on the father’s side, and thoroughly in the duke’s coun- 
cils. Twice the duke paced the chamber without vouch- 
safing a word to either, then paused by the round win- 
dow that overlooked the Thames. The scene was fair; 
the sun, towards its decline, glittered on numerous small 
pleasure-boats, which shot to and fro between Westmin- 
ster and London, or towards the opposite shores of Lam- 
beth. His eye sought eagerly, along the curves of the 
river, the grey remains of the fabled Tower of Julius, and 
the walls, gates, and turrets, that rose by the stream, or 
above the dense mass of silent roofs : then it strained 
hard to descry the tops of the more distant masts of that 
infant navy, fostered under Alfred, the far-seeing, for the 
future civilization of wastes unknown, and the empire of 
seas untracked. 

* We give him that title, which this Norman noble generally 
oears in the Chronicles, though Palgrave observes that he is 
rather to be styled Earl of the Magestan (the Welch Marches). 

6* E 


C6 


HAROLD. 


The duke breathed hard, and opened and closed the 
hand which he stretched forth into space, as if to grasp 
the city he beheld. “Rolf,” said he, abruptly, “thou 
knowest, no doubt, the wealth of the London traders, 
one and all ; for, foi de Guillaume, ray gentil chevalier , 
thou art a true Norman, and scentest the smell of gold 
as a hound the boar ! ” 

Rolf smiled, as if pleased with a compliment which 
simpler men might have deemed, at the best, equivocal, 
and replied, — 

“ It is true, my liege ; and gramercy, the air of Eng- 
land sharpens the scent ; for in this villein and motley 
country, made up of all races, — Saxon and Fin, Dane 
and Fleming, Piet and Walloon, — it is not as with us, 
where the brave man and the pure descent are held chief 
in honor: here, gold and land are, in truth, name and 
lordship ; even their popular name for their national as- 
sembly of the Witan is, ‘The Wealthy.’* He who is 
but a ceorl to-day, let him be rich, and he may be earl 
to-morrow, marry in king’s blood, and rule armies under 
a gonfanon statelier than a king’s ; while he whose fathers 
were ealdormen and princes, if, by force or by fraud, by 
waste or by largess, he become poor, falls at once into 
contempt, and out of his state, — sinks into a class they 
call ‘ six-hundred men,’ in their barbarous tongue, and 
his children will probably sink still lower, into ceorls. 
Wherefore gold is the thing here most coveted ; and, by 
St. Michael, the sin is infectious.” 


* Eadigan. — S. Turner, vol. i. p. 274. 


HAROLD. 


67 


William listened to the speech with close attention. 

Good,” said he, rubbing slowly the palm of his right 
hand over the back of the left ; “ a land all compact with 
the power of one race, a race of conquering men, as our 
fathers were, whom nought but cowardice or treason can 
degrade,— such a land, 0 Rolf of Hereford, it were hard 
indeed to subjugate, or decoy, or tame; — ” 

“ So has my lord the duke found the Bretons ; and so 
also do I find the Welch upon my marches of Hereford.” 

“ But,” continued Willia.m, not heeding the interrup- 
tion, “ where wealth is more than blood and race, chiefs 
may be bribed or menaced; and the multitude — by’r 
Lady, the multitude are the same in all lands, mighty 
under valiant and faithful leaders, powerless as sheep 
without them. But to my question, my gentle Rolf; this 
London must be rich?”* 

‘ Rich enow,” answered Rolf, “ to coin into armed 
men, that should stretch from Rouen to Flanders on the 
one hand, and Paris on the other.” 

“ In the veins of Matilda, whom thou wooest for wife,” 
said Fitzosborne, abruptly, “flows the blood of Charle- 
magne. God grant his empire to the children she shall 
bear thee ! ” 

The duke bowed his head, and kissed a relic suspended 

* The comparative wealth of London was indeed considerable. 
When, in 1018, all the rest of England was taxed to an amount 
considered stupendous, viz., 71,000 Saxon pounds, London con- 
tributed 11,000 pounds besides. 


68 


HAROLD. 


from his throat. Farther sign of approval of his coun- 
sellor’s words he gave not, but, after a pause, he said, — 
“When I depart, Rolf, thou wendest back to thy 
marches. These Welch are brave and fierce, and shape 
work enow for thy hands.” 

“Ay, by my halidarae ! poor sleep by the side of the 
bee-hive you have stricken down.” 

“Marry, then,” said William, “let the Welch prey on 
Saxon, Saxon on Welch; let neither win too easily. 
Remember our omens to-day, Welch hawk and Saxon 
bittern, and over their corpses, Duke William’s Norway 
falcon ! Now dress we for the complin * and the ban- 
quet.” 


* Complin , the second vespers. 


BOOK SECOND. 


LANFRANC THE SCHOLAR. 


CHAPTER I. 

Four meals a day, nor those sparing, were not deemed 
too extravagant an interpretation of the daily bread for 
which the Saxons prayed. Four meals a day, from earl 
to ceorl ! “ Happy times ! ” may sigh the descendant of 

the last, if he read these pages ; partly so they were for 
the ceorl, but not in all things, for never sweet is the 
food, and never gladdening is the drink, of servitude. 
Inebriety, the vice of the warlike nations of the North, 
had not, perhaps, been the pre-eminent excess of the 
earlier Saxons, while yet the active and fiery Britons, and 
the subsequent petty wars between the kings of the Hep- 
tarchy, enforced on hardy warriors the safety of temper- 
ance ; but the example of the Danes had been fatal. 
Those giants of the sea, like all who pass from great 
vicissitudes of toil and repose, from the tempest to the 
liaven, snatch with full hands every pleasure in their 
reach. With much that tended permanently to elevate 
the character of the Saxon, they imparted much for a 

( 69 ) 


70 


HAROLD. 


time to degrade it. The Anglian learned to feast to re- 
pletion, and drink to delirium. But such were not the 
vices of the court of the Confessor. Brought up from 
his youth in the cloister-camp of the Normans, what he 
loved in their manners was the abstemious sobriety, and 
the ceremonial religion, which distinguished those sons 
of the Scandinavian from all other kindred tribes. 

The Norman position in France, indeed, in much re- 
sembled that of the Spartan in Greece. He had forced 
a settlement with scanty numbers in the midst of a subju- 
gated and sullen population, surrounded by jealous and 
formidable foes. Hence sobriety was a condition of his 
being, and the policy of the chief lent a willing ear to 
the lessons of the preacher. Like the Spartan, every 
Norman of pure race was free and noble ; and this con- 
sciousness inspired not only that remarkable dignity of 
mien which Spartan and Norman alike possessed, but 
also that fastidious self-respect which would have revolted 
from exhibiting a spectacle of debasement to inferiors. 
And, lastly, as the paucity of their original numbers, the 
perils that beset, and the good fortune that attended 
them, served to render the Spartans the most religious 
of all the Greeks in their dependence on the Divine aid ; 
so, perhaps, to the same causes may be traced the pro- 
verbial piety of the ceremonial Normans ; they carried 
into their new creed something of feudal loyalty to their 
spiritual protectors ; did homage to the Virgin for the 
lands that she vouchsafed to bestow, and recognized in 
St Michael, the chief who conducted their armies. 


HAROLD. 


71 


After hearing the complin vespers in the temporary 
chapel fitted up in that unfinished abbey of Westminster, 
which occupied the site of the temple of Apollo,* the 
king and his guests repaired to their evening meal in the 
great hall of the palace. Below the dais were ranged 
three long tables for the knights in William’s train, and 
that flower of the Saxon nobility who, fond, like all youth,* 
of change and imitation, thronged the court of their 
Normanized saint, and scorned the rude patriotism of 
their fathers. But hearts truly English were not there. 
Yea, many of Godwin’s noblest foes sighed for the Eng- 
lish-hearted earl, banished by Norman guile on behalf of 
English law. 

At the oval table on the dais the guests were select 
and chosen. At the right hand of the king sat William ; 
at the left Odo of Bayeux. Over these three stretched a 
canopy of cloth of gold ; the chairs on which each sat 
were of metal, richly gilded over, and the arms carved in 
elaborate arabesques. At this table too was the king’s 
nephew, the Earl of Hereford, and, in right of kinsman- 
ship to the dnke, the Norman’s beloved baron and grand 
seneschal, William Fitzosborne, who, though in Nor- 
mandy even he sat not at the duke’s table, was, as related 
to his lord, invited by Edward to his own. No other 

* Camden. — A church was built out of the ruins of that temple 
by Sibert, King of the East Saxons; and Canute favored much the 
small monastery attached to it (originally established by Dunstan 
for twelve Benedictines), on account of its Abbot Wulnoth, whose 
society pleased him. The old palace of Canute, in Thorney Isle, 
bad been destroyed by fire. 


12 


HAROLD. 


guests were admitted to this board, so that, save Edward, 
all were Norman. The dishes were of gold and silver, 
the cups inlaid with jewels. Before each guest was a 
knife, with hilt adorned by precious stones, and a napkin 
fringed with silver. The meats were not placed on the 
table, but served upon small spits, and between every 
course a basin of perfumed water was borne round by 
high-born pages. No dame graced the festival ; for she 
who should have presided — she, matchless for beauty 
without pride, piety without asceticism, and learning with- 
out pedantry — she, the pale rose of England, loved daugh- 
ter of Godwin, and loathed, wife of Edward, had shared 
in the fall of her kindred, and had been sent by the meek 
King, or his fierce counsellors, to an abbey in Hampshire, 
with the taunt “that it was not meet that the child and 
sister should enjoy state and pomp, while the sire and 
brethren ate the bread of the stranger in banishment and 
disgrace.” 

But, hungry as were the guests, it was not the custom 
of that holy court to fall to without due religious cere- 
monial. The rage for psalm-singing was then at its 
height in England ; psalmody had excluded almost every 
other description of vocal music ; and it is even said that 
great festivals on certain occasions were preluded by no 
less an effort of lungs and memory than the entire songs 
bequeathed to us by King David ! This day, however, 
Hugoline, Edward’s Nerman chamberlain, had been 
pleased to abridge the length of the prolix grace, and 
the company were let off, to Edward’s surprise and dis- 


HAROLD. 


13 

pleasure, with the curt and unseemly preparation of only 
nine psalms and one special hymn in honor of some ob- 
scure saint to whom the day was dedicated. This per- 
formed, the guests resumed their seats, Edward murmur- 
ing an apology to William for the strange omission of 
bis chamberlain, and saying thrice to himself, “Naught, 
naught — very naught.” 

The mirth languished at the royal table, despite some 
gay efforts from Rolf, and some hollow attempts at light- 
hearted cheerfulness from the great duke, whose eyes, 
wandering down the table, were endeavoring to distin- 
guish Saxon from Norman, and count how many of the 
first might already be reckoned in the train of his friends. 
But at the long tables below, as the feast thickened, and 
ale, mead, pigment, morat, and wine circled round, the 
tongue of the Saxon was loosed, and the Norman knight 
lost somewhat of his superb gravity. It was just as what 
a Danish poet called the “sun of the night,” (in other 
words, the fierce warmth of the wine), had attained its 
meridian glow, that some slight disturbance at the doors 
of the hall, without which waited a dense crowd of the 
poor on whom the fragments of the feast were afterwards 
to be bestowed, was followed by the entrance of two 
strangers, for whom the officers appointed to marshal the 
entertainment made room at the foot of one of the tables. 
Both these new comers were clad with extreme plain- 
ness; one in a dress, though not quite monastic, that of 
an ecclesiastic of low degree ; the other in a long grey 
mantle and loose gonna, the train of which last was 
I. — 1 


74 


HAROLD. 


tucked into a broad leathern belt, leaving bare the 
leggings, which showed limbs of great bulk and sinew, 
and which were stained by the dust and mire of travel. 
The first mentioned w T as slight and small of person ; the 
last was of the height and port of the sons of Anak. 
The countenance of neither could be perceived, for both 
had let fall the hood, worn by civilians as by priests out 
of doors, more than half-way over their faces. 

A murmur of great surprise, disdain, and resentment, 
at the intrusion of strangers so attired, circulated round 
the neighborhood in which they had been placed, checked 
for a moment by a certain air of respect which the officer 
had shown towards both, but especially the taller; but 
breaking out with greater vivacity from the faint restraint, 
as the tall man unceremoniously stretched across the 
board, drew towards himself an immense flagon, which 
(agreeably to the custom of arranging the feast in 
“ messes ” of four), had been specially appropriated to 
Ulf the Dane, Godrich the Saxon, and two young Nor- 
man knights akin to the puissant Lord of Grantmesnil, — 
and having offered it to his comrade, who shook his 
head, drained it with a gusto that seemed to bespeak him 
at least no Norman, and wiped his lips boorishly with 
the - sleeve of his huge arm. 

“ Dainty, sir,” said one of those Norman knights, 
William Mallet, of the house of Mallet de Graville,* as 


* See Note to Pluquet’s “ Roman de Rou,” p. 285. 

N. B. — Whenever the “Roman de Rou ” is quoted in these 
pages, it is from the excellent edition of M. Pluquet. 


HAROLD. 


75 


lie moved as far from the gigantic intruder as the space 
on the settle would permit, “forgive the observation that 
you have damaged my mantle, you have grazed my foot, 
and you have drunk my wine. And vouchsafe, if it so 
please you, the face of the man who hath done this triple 
wrong to William Mallet de Graville.” 

A kind of laugh — for laugh absolute it was not — 
rattled under the cowl of the tall stranger, as he drew it 
still closer over his face, with a hand that might have 
spanned the breast of his interrogator, and he made a 
gesture as if he did not understand the question addressed 
to him. 

Therewith the Norman knight, bending with demure 
courtsey across the board to Godrith the Saxon, said, — 

“ Pardex* but this fair guest and seigneur seemeth to 
me, noble Godree (whose name I fear my lips do but 
rudely enounce), of Saxon line and language ; our Ro- 
mance tongue he knoweth not. Pray you, is it the Saxon 
custom to enter a king’s hall so garbed, and drink a 
knight’s wine so mutely?” 

Godrith, a young Saxon of considerable rank, but one 
of the most sedulous of the imitators of the foreign 
fashions, colored high at the irony in the knight’s speech, 
and turning rudely to the huge guest, who was now 
causing immense fragments of pastry to vanish under the 
cavernous cowl, he said in his native tongue, though with 
a lisp as if unfamiliar to him, — 

* Pardez, or Parde, corresponding to the modern French exple- 
tive, pardie. 


76 


HAROLD. 


“ If thou beest Saxon, shame us not with thy eeorlish 
manners; crave pardon of this Norman thegn, who will 
doubtless yield it to thee in pity. Uncover thy face — 
and — ” 

Here the Saxon’s rebuke was interrupted ; for, one of 
the servitors, just then approaching Godrith’s side with a 
spit, elegantly caparisoned with some score of plump 
larks, the unmannerly giant stretched out his arm within 
an inch of the Saxon’s startled nose, and possessed him- 
self of larks, broche, and all. He drew off two, which he 
placed on his friend’s platter, despite all dissuasive 
gesticulations, and deposited the rest upon his own. The 
young banqueters gazed upon the spectacle in wrath too 
full for words. 

At last spoke Mallet de Graville, with an envious eye 
upon the larks — for though a Norman was not glutton- 
ous, he was epicurean — “ Certes, and foi de chevalier! 
a man must go into strange parts if he wish to see 
monsters ; but we are fortunate people,” (and he turned 
to his Norman friend Aymer, Quen * or Count, D’Eve- 
reux,) “that we have discovered Polyphemus without 
going so far as Ulysses;” and pointing to the hooded 
giant, he quoted, appropriately enough, 

“ Monstruro, horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.” 

The giant continued to devour his larks, as compla- 
cently as the ogre to whom he was likened might have 

* Quen, or rather Quens ; synonymous with Count in the Norman 
Chronicles. Earl Godwin is strangely styled by Wace, Quens 
Orcine. 


HAROLD. 77 

devoured the Greeks in his cave. But his fellow intruder 
seemed agitated by the sound of the Latin ; he lifted up 
his head suddenly, and showed lips glistening with white 
even teeth, and curved into an approving smile, while he 
said : “Bene, mifili! bene, lepidissime, poetos verba, in 
militis ore, mon indecora sonant”* 

The young Norman stared at the speaker, and replied, 
in the same tone of grave affectation, — “ Courteous Sir ! 
the approbation of an ecclesiastic so eminent as I take 
you to be, from the modesty with which you conceal your 
greatness, cannot fail to draw upon me the envy of my 
English friends ; who are accustomed to swear in verba 
magistri, only for verba they learnedly substitute vina.” 

“You are pleasant, Sire Mallet,” said Godrith, red- 
dening ; “ but I know well that Latin is only fit foi 
monks and shavelings; and little enow even they have 
to boast of.” 

The Norman’s lip curled in disdain. “Latin! — 0, 
Godree, bien aime ! — Latin is the tongue of Caesars and 
senators, fortes conquerors and preux chevaliers. Know- 
est thou not that Duke William the dauntless at eight 
years old had the Comments of Julius Caesar by heart? 
— and that it is his saying, that ‘a king without letters 
is a crowned ass ? ’ j* When the king is an ass, asinine 
are his subjects. Wherefore go to school, speak respect- 

* *‘Good, good, pleasant son, — the words of the poet sound 
gracefully on the lips of the knight.” 

■j- A sentiment variously assigned to William and to his son 
Henry the Beau Clerc. 

7 * 


78 


HAROLD. 


fully of thy betters, the monks and shavelings, who with 
us are often brave captains and sage councillors, — and 
learn that a full head makes a weighty hand.” 

“ Thy name, young knight?” said the ecclesiastic, in 
Norman French, though with a slight foreign accent. 

“ I can give it thee,” said the giant, speaking aloud 
for the first time, in the same language, and in a rough 
voice, which a quick ear might have detected as disguised, 
— “ I can describe to thee name, birth, and quality. By 
name, this youth is Guillaume Mallet, sometimes styled 
De Graville, because our Norman gentilhommes, forsooth, 
must always now have a ‘de’ tacked to their names; 
nevertheless he hath no other right to the seigneurie of 
Graville, which appertains to the head of his house, than 
may be conferred by an old tower on one corner of the 
demesnes so designated, with lands that would feed one 
horse and two villeins — if they were not in pawn to a 
Jew for moneys to buy velvet mantelines and a chain of 
gold. By birth, he comes from Mallet,* a bold Nor- 
wegian in the fleet of Rou the Sea-king ; his mother was 
a Frank woman, from whom he inherits his best posses- 
sions — videlicet, a shrewd wit and a railing tongue. His 
qualities are abstinence, for he eateth nowhere save at 
the cost of another — some Latin, for he was meant for a 
monk, because he seemed too slight of frame for a war- 
rior — some courage, for in spite of his frame he slew 
three Burgundians with his own hand: and Duke Wil- 


* Mallet is a genuine Scandinavian name to this day 


HAROLD. 


79 


liam, among other foolish acts, spoilt a friar sans tache , 

by making a knight sans terre ; and for the rest ” 

“And for the rest,” interrupted the Sire de Graville, 
turning white with wrath, but speaking in a low repressed 
voice, “ were it not that Duke William sat yonder, thou 
shouldst have six inches of cold steel in thy huge carcase 
to digest thy stolen dinner, and silence thy unmannerly 
tongue. — ” 

“ For the rest,” continued the giant indifferently, and 
as if he had not heard the interruption ; “ for the rest, 
he only resembles Achilles, in being impiger, iracundus. 
Big men can quote Latin as well as little ones, Messire 
Mallet the beau clerc /” 

Mallet’s hand was on his dagger ; and his eye dilated 
like that of the panther before he springs ; but fortunately, 
at that moment, the deep sonorous voice of William, ac- 
customed to send its sounds down the ranks of an army, 
rolled clear through the assemblage, though pitched little 
above its ordinary key : — 

“ Fair is your feast, and bright your wine, Sir King 
and brother mine ! But I miss here what king and 
knight hold as the salt of the feast and the perfume to 
the wine : the lay of the minstrel. Beshrew me, but 
both Saxon and Norman are of kindred stock, and love 
to hear in hall and bower the deeds of their northern 
fathers. Crave I therefore from your glee-men, or harp- 
ers, some song of the olden time ! ” 

A murmur of applause went through the Norman part 
of the assembly ! the Saxons looked up ; and some of 


80 


HAROLD. 


the more practised courtiers sighed wearily, for they knew 
well what ditties alone were in favor with the saintly Ed- 
ward. 

The low voice of the king in reply was not heard, but 
those habituated to read his countenance in its very faint 
varieties of expression, might have seen that it conveyed 
reproof ; and its purport soon became practically known, 
when a lugubrious prelude was heard from a quarter of 
the hall, in which sat certain ghost-like musicians in white 
robes — white as winding-sheets ; and forthwith a dolor- 
ous and dirge-like voice chaunted a long, and most tedious 
recital of the miracles and martyrdom of some early saint. 
So monotonous was the ehaunt, that its effect soon be- 
came visible in a general drowsiness. And when Edward, 
who alone listened with attentive delight, turned towards 
the close to gather sympathizing admiration from his dis- 
tinguished guests, he saw his nephew yawning as if his 
jaw were dislocated — the Bishop of Bayeux, with his 
well-ringed fingers interlaced and resting on his stomach, 
fast asleep — Fitzosborne’s half-shaven head balancing to 
and fro with many an uneasy start — and William, wide- 
awake indeed, but with eyes fixed on vacant space, and 
his soul far away from the gridiron to which (all other 
saints be praised !) the saint of the ballad had at last 
happily arrived. 

U A comforting and salutary recital, Count William,” 
said the king. 

The duke started from his reverie, and bowed his head : 
then said rather abruptly, “Is not yon blazon that of 
King Alfred ? ” 


HAROLD. 


8] 


“Yea. Wherefore V* 

“ Hem ! Matilda of Flanders is in direct descent from 
Alfred : it is a name and a line the Saxons yet honor 1 ” 

“ Surely, yes ; Alfred was a great man, and reformed 
the Psalmster,” replied Edward. 

The dirge ceased, but so benumbing had been its effect, 
that the torpor it created, did not subside with the cause 
There was a dead and funereal silence throughout the 
spacious hall, when suddenly, loudly, mightily, as the 
blast of the trumpet upon the hush of the grave, rose a 
single voice. All started — all turned — all looked to oue 
direction ; and they saw, that the great voice pealed 
from the farthest end of the hall. From under his gown 
the gigantic stranger had drawn a small three-stringea 
instrument — somewhat resembling the modern lute — and 
thus he sang : — 

THE BALLAD OF ROU.* 


I. 

From Blois to Senlis, wave by wave, rolled on the Norman flood, 
And Frank on Frank went drifting down the weltering tide of 
blood ; 

There was not left in all the land a castle wall to fire, 

And not a wife but wailed a lord, a child but mourned a sire. 

To Charles the king, the mitred monks, the mailed barons flew, 
While, shaking earth, behind them strode, the thunder march of 
Rou. 


* Rou — the name given by the French to Rollo, or Rolf-ganger 
the founder of the Norman settlement. 


7 * 


F 


82 


HAROLD. 


II. 

'* 0 king,” then cried those barons bold, “ in vain are mace and 
mail, 

We fall before the Norman axe, as corn before the hail.” 

“And vainly,” cried the pious monks, “by Mary’s shrine we kneel, 
For prayers, like arrows, glance aside, against the Norman steel.” 
The barons groaned, the shavelings wept, while near and nearer 
drew, 

As death-birds round their scented feast, the raven flags of Rou. 

hi. 

Then said King Charles, “ where thousands fail, what king can 
stand alone? 

The strength of kings is in the men that gather round the throne. 
When war dismays my barons bold, ’tis time for war to cease ; 
When Heaven forsakes my pious monks, the will of Heaven is peace. 
Go forth, my monks, with mass and rood the Norman camp unto, 
And to the fold, with shepherd crook, entice this grisly Rou. 


IT. 

“I’ll give him all the ocean coast, from Michael Mount to Eure, 
And Gille, my child, shall be his bride, to bind him fast and sure ; 
Let him but kiss the Christian cross, and sheathe the heathen 
sword, 

And hold the lands I cannot keep, a fief from Charles his lord.” 
Forth went the pastors of the Church, the Shepherd’s work to do, 
Aud wrap the golden fleece around the tiger loins of Rou. 


v. 

I si r: chanting came the shaven monks, within the camp of dread , 
Amidst his warriors, Norman Rou stood taller by the head. 

Out spoke the Frank archbishop then, a priest devout and sage, 

“ When peace and plenty wait thy word, what need of war and 
rage ? 

Why waste a land as fair as aught beneath the arch of blue, 

Which might be thine to sow and reap ? — Thus saith the king to 
Rou : 


HAROLD. 


83 


VI. 

“ * I’ll give thee all the ocean coast, from Michael Mount to Eure 
And Gille, my fairest child, as bride, to bind thee fast and sure ; 

If thou but kneel to Christ our God, and sheathe thy paynim sword, 
And hold thy land, the Church’s son, a fief from Charles thy lord.’ ” 
The Norman on his warriors looked — to counsel they withdrew ; 
The saints took pity on the Franks, and moved the soul of Rou. 

VII. 

So back he strode and thus he spoke, to that archbishop meek : 

“I take the land thy king bestows from Eure to Michael-peak, 

I take the maid, or foul or fair, a bargain with the coast, 

And for thy creed, a sea-king’s gods are those that give the most. 
So hie thee back, and tell thy chief to make his proffer true, 

And he shall find a docile son, and ye a saint in Rou.” 

VIII. 

So o’er the border stream of Epte came Rou the Norman, where, 
Begirt with barons, sat the king, enthroned at green St. Clair ; 

He placed his hand in Charles’s hand, — loud shouted alt the throng, 
But tears were in King Charles’s eyes — the grip of Rou was strong. 
“Now kiss the foot,” the bishop said, “that homage still is due;” 
Then dark the frown and stern the smile of that grim convert, Rou. 

IX. 

He takes the foot, as if the foot to slavish lips to bring; 

The Normans scowl ; he tilts the throne, and backward falls the 
king. 

Loud laugh the joyous Norman men— pale stare the Franks aghast ; 
And Rou lifts up his head as from the wind springs up the mast : 
“I said I would adore a God, but not a mortal too; 

The foot that fled before a foe let cowards kiss ! ” said Rou. 

No words can express the excitement which this rough 
minstrelsy — marred as it is by our poor translation from 
the Romance tongue in which it was chanted — produced 
amongst the Norman guests; less perhaps, indeed, the 




84 


HAROLD 


song itself, than the recognition of the minstrel ; and as 
he closed, from more than a hundred voices came the loud 
murmur, only subdued from a shout by the royal pre- 
sence, “Taillefer, our Norman Taillefer!” 

“By our joint saint, Peter, my cousin the king,” ex- 
claimed William, after a frank cordial laugh ; “ well I 
wot, no tongue less free than my warrior minstrel’s could 
have so shocked our ears. Excuse his bold theme, for 
the sake of his bold heart, I pray thee ; and since I know 
well” (here the duke’s face grew grave and anxious) 
“ that nought save urgent and weighty news from my 
stormy realm could have brought over this rhyming 
petral, permit the officer behind me to lead hither a bird, 
I fear, of omen as well as of song.” 

“ Whatever pleases thee, pleases me,” said Edward, 
dryly ; and he gave the order to the attendant. In a 
few moments, up the space in the hall, between either 
table, came the large stride of the famous minstrel, pre- 
ceded by the officer, and followed by the ecclesiastic. 
The hoods of both were now thrown back, and discovered 
countenances in strange contrast, but each equally worthy 
of the attention it provoked. The face of the minstrel 
was open and sunny as the day ; and that of the priest, 
dark and close as night. Thick curls of deep auburn (the 
most common color for the locks of the Norman) wreathed 
in careless disorder round Taillefer’s massive unwrinkled 
brow. His eye, of light hazel, was bold and joyous ; 
mirth, though sarcastic and sly, mantled round his lips, 
His whole presence was at once engaging and heroic. 


HAROLD. 


85 


On the other hand, the priest’s cheek was dark and 
sallow ; his features singularly delicate and refined ; his 
forehead high, but somewhat narrow' and crossed with 
lines of thought ; his mien composed, modest, but "lot 
without calm self-confidence. Amongst that assembly 
of soldiers, noiseless, self-collected, and conscious of his 
surpassing power over swords and mail, moved the 
Scholar. 

William’s keen eye rested on the priest with some sur- 
prise, not unmixed with pride and ire ; but first address- 
ing Taillefer, who now gained the foot of the dais, he 
said, with a familiarity almost fond — 

“Now, by’re lady, if thou bringest not ill news, thy 
gay face, man, is pleasanter to mine eyes than thy rough 
song to my ears. Kneel, Taillefer, kneel to King Ed- 
ward, and with more address, rogue, than our unlucky 
countryman to King Charles.” 

But Edward, as ill-liking the form of the giant as the 
subject of his lay, said, pushing back his seat as far as 
he could — 

“ Nay, nay, we excuse thee, we excuse thee, tall man.” 
Nevertheless, the minstrel still knelt, and so, with a look 
of profound humility, did the priest. Then both slowly 
rose, and at a sign from the duke, passed to the other 
side of the table, standing behind Fitzosborne’s chair. 

“ Clerk,” said William, eyeing deliberately the sallow 
face of the ecclesiastic ; “ I know thee of old ; and if the 
church have sent me an envoy, per la resplendar De, it 
should have sent me at least an abbot.” 

I.— 8 


HAROLD. 


86 

u Hein, Hein!” said Taillefer, bluntly; “vex not my 
bon camarade, Count of the Normans. Gramercy, thou 
wilt welcome him, peradventure, better than me ; for the 
singer tells but of discord, and the sage may restore the 
harmony.’ 7 

“ Ha ! ” said the duke ; and the frown fell so dark over 
his eyes that the last seemed only visible by two sparks 
of fire. “I guess, my proud Vavasours are mutinous. 
Retire, thou and thy comrade. Await me in my cham- 
ber. The feast shall not flag in London because the wind 
blows a gale in Rouen.” 

The two envoys, since so they seemed, bowed in silence 
and withdrew. 

“Nought of ill-tidings, I trust,” said Edward, who 
had not listened to the whispered communications that 
had passed between the duke and his subjects. “No 
schism in thy church ! The clerk seemed a peaceful man, 
and a humble.” 

“An’ there were schism in my church,” said the fiery 
duke ; “ my brother of Bayeux would settle it by argu- 
ments as close as the gap between cord and throttle.” 

“Ah ! thou art, doubtless, well read in the canons, 
holy Odo ! ” said the king, turning to the bishop with 
more respect than he had yet evinced towards that gentle 
prelate. 

“ Canons, yes, seigneur, I draw them up myself for my 
flock, conformably with such interpretations of the Roman 
Church as suit best with the Norman realm ; and woe to 


HAROLD. ST 

deacon, monk, or abbot, who chooses to misconstrue 
them.” * 

The bishop looked so truculent and menacing, while 
his fancy thus conjured up the possibility of heretical 
dissent, that Edward shrank from him as he had done 
from Taillefer ; and in a few minutes after, on exchange 
of signals between himself and the duke, who, impatient 
to escape, was too stately to testify that desire, the retire- 
ment of the royal party broke up the banquet ; save, in- 
deed, that a few of the elder Saxons, and more incor- 
rigible Danes, still steadily kept their seats, and were 
finally dislodged from their later settlements on the stone 
floors, to find themselves, at dawn, carefully propped in 
a row against the outer walls of the palace, with their 
patient attendants, holding links, and gazing on their 
masters with stolid envy, if not of the repose at least of 
the drugs that had caused it. 


* Pious severity to the heterodox was a Norman virtue. William 
of Poictiers says of William, “One knows with what zeal he pur- 
sued and exterminated those who thought differently ; ” i. e., on 
transubstantiation. But the wise Norman, while flattering the 
tastes of the Roman Pontiff in such matters, took special care to 
preserve the independence of his Church from any undue dictation. 


88 


HAROLD. 


CHAPTER II. 

“And now,” said William, reclining on a long and 
narrow couch, with raised carved-work all round it like 
a box (the approved fashion of a bed in those days), 
“now, Sire Taillefer — thy news.” 

There were then in the duke’s chamber, the Count 
Fitzosborne, Lord of Breteuil, surnamed “the Proud 
Spirit ” — who, with great dignity, was holding before the 
brazier the ample tunic of linen (called dormitorium in 
the Latin of that time, and night-rail in the Saxon 
tongue), in which his lord was to robe his formidable 
limbs for repose,* — Taillefer, who stood erect before the 
duke as a Roman sentry at his post, — and the ecclesiastic, 
a little apart, with arms gathered under his gown, and 
his bright dark eyes fixed on the ground. 

“ High and puissant, my liege,” then said Taillefer, 
gravely, and with a shade of sympathy on his large face, 
“ my news is such as is best told briefly : Bunaz, Count 
d’Eu and descendant of Richard Sanspeur, hath raised 
the standard of revolt.” 

“ Go on,” said the duke, clenching his hand. 

“ Henry, King of the French, is treating with the rebel, 

* A few generations later this comfortable and decent fashion of 
night-gear was abandoned ; and our forefathers, Saxon and Nor- 
man, went to bed in puris naluralibus, like the Laplanders. 


HAROLD. 


89 


and stirring up mutiny in thy realm, and pretenders to 
thy throne. ” 

“ Ha ! ” said the duke, and his lip quivered ; “ this is 
not all ?” 

“ No, my liege 1 and the worst is to come. Thy uncle 
Mauger, knowing that thy heart is bent on thy speedy 
nuptials with the high and noble damsel, Matilda of 
Flanders, has broken out again in thine absence — is 
preaching against thee in hall and from pulpit. He 
declares that such espousals are incestuous, both as within 
the forbidden degrees, and inasmuch as Adele, the lady’s 
mother, was betrothed to thine uncle Richard ; and 
Mauger menaces excommunication if my liege pursues 
his suit ! * So troubled is the realm, that I, waiting not 
for debate in council, and fearing sinister ambassage if 1 
did so, took ship from thy port of Cherburg, and have 
not flagged rein, and scarce broken bread, till I could 
say to the heir of Rolf the Founder — Save thy realm 
from the men of mail, and thy bride from the knaves in 
serge.” 

“ Ho, ho ! ” cried William ; then bursting forth in full 

* Most of the chroniclers merely state the parentage within the 
forbidden degrees as the obstacle, to William’s marriage with 
Matilda ; but the betrothal or rather nuptials of her mother Adele 
with Richard III. (though never consummated) appears to have 
been the true canonical objection. — See note to Wace, p. 27. 
Nevertheless, Matilda’s mother Adele stood in the relation of aunt 
to William, as widow of his father’s elder brother, “an affinity,*’ 
as is observed by a writer in the “Arcbaeologia,” “quite near 
enough to account for, if not to justify, the interference of the 
Church.” — Arch. vol. xxxii. p. 109. 

8 * 


90 


HAROLD. 


wrath, as he sprang from the couch, “ Hearest thou this, 
Lord Seneschal ? Seven years, the probation of the 
patriarch, have I wooed and waited ; and lo, in the 
seventh, does a proud priest say to me, ‘ Wrench the love 
from thy heart-strings 1 ’ — Excommunicate me — me — 
William, the son of Robert the Devil 1 Ha, by God's 
splendor, Mauger shall live to wish the father stood, in 
the foul fiend’s true likeness, by his side, rather than 
brave the bent brow' of the son ! ” 

“ Dread my lord,” said Fitzosborne, desisting from his 
employ, and rising to his feet; “thou knowest that I am 
thy true friend and leal knight ; thou knowest how I have 
aided thee in this marriage with the lady of Flanders, 
and how gravely I think that what pleases thy fancy will 
guard thy realm ; but rather than brave the order of the 
Church, and the ban of the Pope, I would see thee wed 
to the poorest virgin in Normandy.” 

William, who had been pacing the room, like an en- 
raged lion in his den, halted in amaze at this bold speech. 

“This from thee, William Fitzosborne 1 — from thee ! 
I tell thee, that if all the priests in Christendom, and all 
the barons in France, stood between me and my bride, I 
would hew my way through the midst. Foes invade my 
realm — let them; princes conspire against me — I smile 
in scorn ; subjects mutiny — this strong hand can punish, 
or this large heart can forgive. All these are the 
dangers which he who governs men should prepare to 
meet ; but man has a right to his love, as the stag to Ids 
hind. And he who wrongs me here, is foe and traitor to 


HAROLD. 


Si 

me, not as Norman duke but as human being. Look to 
it — thou and thy proud barons, look to it!” 

“ Proud may thy barons be,” said Fitzosborne, redden- 
ing, and with a brow that quailed not before his lord’s ; 
“for they are the sons of those who carved out the realm 
of the Norman, and owned in Rou but the feudal chief 
of free warriors ; vassals are not villeins. And that 
which we hold our duty — whether to Church or chief — 
that Duke William, thy proud barons will doubtless do ; 
nor less, believe me, for threats which, braved in dis- 
charge of duty and defence of freedom, we hold as air.” 

The duke gazed on his haughty subject with an eye in 
which a meaner spirit might have seen its doom. The 
veins in his broad temples swelled like cords, and a light 
foam gathered round his quivering lips. But fiery and 
fearless as William was, not less was he sagacious and 
profound. In that one man he saw the representative 
of that superb and matchless chivalry — that race of races 
— those men of men, in whom the brave acknowledge the 
highest example of valiant deeds, and the free the manli- 
est assertion of noble thoughts,* since the day when the 

* It might be easy to show, were this the place, that though the 
Saxons never lost their love of liberty, yet that the victories which 
gradually regained the liberty from the gripe of the Anglo-Norman 
kings, were achieved by the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. And even 
to this day, the few rare descendants of that race (whatever their 
political faction), will generally exhibit that impatience of despotic 
influence, and that disdain of corruption, which characterize the 
homely bonders of Norway, in whom we may still recognize the 
sturdy likeness of their fathers ; while it is also remarkable that 
the modern inhabitants of those portions of the kingdom originally 


92 


HAROLD 


last Athenian covered his head with his mantle, and 
mutely died ; and far from being the most stubborn 
against his will, it was to Fitzosborne’s paramount 
influence with the council, that he had often owed their 
submission to his wishes, and their contributions to his 
wars. In the very tempest of his wrath, he felt that the 
blow he longed to strike on that bold head would shiver 
his ducal throne to the dust. He felt too, that awful 
indeed was that power of the Church which could thus 
turn against him the heart of his truest knight : and he 
began (for with all his outward frankness his temper was 
suspici-ous) to wrong the great-souled noble by the 
thought that he might already be won over by the enemies 
whom Mauger had arrayed against his nuptials. There- 
fore, with one of those rare and mighty efforts of that 
dissimulation which debased his character, but achieved 
his fortunes, he cleared his brow of its dark cloud, and 
said in a low voice, that was not without its pathos — 

“ Had an angel from heaven forewarned me that Wil- 
liam Fitzosborne would speak thus to his kinsman and 
brother in arms, in the hour of need and the agony of 

passion, I would have disbelieved him. Let it pass ” 

But, ere the last word was out of his lips, Fitzosborne 
had fallen on his knees before the duke, and, clasping his 
hand, exclaimed, while the tears rolled down his swarthy 

peopled by their kindred Danes, are, irrespective of mere party 
divisions, noted for their intolerance of all oppression, and their 
resolute independence of character; to wit, Yorkshire, Norfolk, 
Cumberland, and large districts in the Scottish lowlands. 


HAROLD. 


93 


cheek, “ Pardon, pardon, ray liege ! when thou speakcst 
thus, my heart melts. What thou wiliest, that will I ! 
Church or Pope, no matter. Send me to Flanders; I 
will bring back thy bride.” 

The slight smile that curved William’s lip, showed that 
he was scarce worthy of that sublime weakness in his 
friend. But he cordially pressed the hand that grasped 
his own, and said, “Rise ; thus should brother speak to 
brother.” Then — for his wrath was only concealed, not 
stifled, and yearned for its vent — his eye fell upon the 
delicate and thoughtful face of the priest, who had 
watched this short and stormy conference in profound 
silence, despite Taillefer’s whispers to him to interrupt 
the dispute. “So, priest,” he said, “I remember me 
that when Mauger before let loose his rebellious tongue 
thou didst lend thy pedant learning to eke out his brain- 
less treason. Methought that I then banished thee my 
realm ? ” 

“Not so, Count and Seigneur,” answered the ecclesi- 
astic, with a grave but arch smile on his lip ; “ let me 
remind thee, that to speed me back to my native land 
thou didst graciously send me a horse, halting on three 
legs, and all lame on the fourth. Thus mounted, I met 
thee on my road. I saluted thee ; so did the beast, for 
his head well-nigh touched the ground. Whereon I did 
ask thee, in a Latin play of words, to give me at least a 
quadruped, not a tripod, for my journey.* Gracious 

* Ex perveluslo codice, MS. Chron. Bee. in Vit. Lanfranc, quoted 
id the 1 Archaeologia, r ’ vol. xxxii. p. 109. The joke, which is very 


94 


HAROLD. 


even in ire, and with relenting laugh, was thine answer. 
My liege, thy words implied banishment — thy laughter, 
pardon. So I stayed.” 

Despite his wrath, William could scarcely repress a 
smile ; but recollecting himself, he replied, more gravely, 
“ Peace with this levity, priest. Doubtless, thou art the 
envoy from this scrupulous Mauger, or some other of my 
gentle clergy ; and thou comest, as doubtless, with soft 
words, and whining homilies. It is in vain. I hold the 
Church in holy reverence; the pontiff knows it. But 
Matilda of Flanders I have wooed ; and Matilda of 
Flanders shall sit by my side in the halls of Rouen, or 
on the deck of my war-ship, till it anchors on a land 
worthy to yield a new domain to the son of the Sea- 
king.” 

“ In the halls of Rouen — and it may be on the throne 
of England — shall Matilda reign by the side of William,” 
said the priest, in a clear, low, and emphatic voice ; “ and 
it was to tell my lord the duke that I repent me of my 
first unconsidered obeisance to Mauger as my spiritual 
superior ; that since then I have myself examined canon 
and precedent; and though the letter of the law be against 
thy spousals, it comes precisely under the category of those 
alliances to which the fathers of the Church accord dis- 
pensation : — it is to tell thee this, that I, plain Doctor 
of Laws and priest of Pavia, have crossd the seas.” 


poop, seems to have turned upon pede and quadrupede ; it is a little 
altered in the text. 


HAROLD. 


95 


“ Ha Rou ! — Ha Rou ! ” cried Taillefer, with his usual 
bluffness, and laughing with great glee, “ why wouldst 
thou not listen to me, monseigneur ? ” 

“ If thou deceivest me not,” said William, in surprise, 
“and thou canst make good thy words, no prelate in 
Neustria, save Odo of Bayeux, shall lift his head high as 
thire.” And here, William, deeply versed in the science 
of men, bent his eyes keenly upon the unchanging and 
earnest face of the speaker. “Ah,” he burst out, as if 
satisfied with the survey, “ and my mind tells me that thou 
speakest not thus boldly arid calmly without ground suffi- 
cient. Man, I like thee. Thy name ? I forget it.” 

“ Lanfranc of Pavia, please you, my lord ; called some- 
times, ‘ Lanfranc the Scholar ’ in thy cloister of Bee. Nor 
misdeem me, that I, humble, unmitred priest, should be 
thus bold. In birth I am noble, and my kindred stand 
near to the grace of our ghostly pontiff ; to the pontiff I 
myself am not unknown. Did I desire honors, in Italy I 
might seek them ; it is not so. I crave no guerdon for 
the service I proffer; none but this — leisure and books 
in the Convent of Bee.” 

“ Sit down — nay, sit, man,” said William, greatly in- 
terested, but still suspicious. “One riddle only I ask 
thee to solve, before I give thee all my trust, and place 
my very heart in thy hands. Why, if thou desirest not 
rewards, shouldst thou thus care to serve me — th'>a, a 
foreigner?” 

A light, brilliant and calm, shone in the eyes of the 
scholar, and a blush spread over his pale cheeks. 


96 


HAROLD. 


“ My Lord Prince, I will answer in plain words. But 
first permit me to be the questioner. ” 

The priest turned towards Fitzosborne, who had seated 
himself on a stool at William’s feet, and, leaning his chin 
on his hand, listened to the ecclesiastic, not more with 
devotion to his calling, than wonder at the influence one 
so obscure was irresistiby gaining over his own martial 
spirit, and William’s iron craft. 

“ Lovest thou not, William Lord of Breteuil, lovest 
thou not fame for the sake of fame ? ” 

“ Sur mon ame, — yes ! ” said the baron. 

“And thou, Taillefer the minstrel, lovest thou not song 
for the sake of song?” 

“ For song alone,” replied the mighty minstrel. “ More 
gold in one ringing rhyme than in all the coffers of Chris- 
tendom.” 

“And marvellest thou, reader of men’s hearts,” said 
the scholar, turning once more to William, “ that the 
student loves knowledge for the sake of knowledge ? 
Born of high race, poor in purse, and slight of thews,, 
betimes I found wealth in books, and drew strength from 
lore. I heard of the Count of Rouen and the Normans, 
as a prince of small domain, with a measureless spirit, a 
lover of letters, and a captain in war. I came to thy 
duchy, I noted its subjects and its prince, and the words 
of Themistocles rang in my ear : ‘ I cannot play the lute, 
but I can make a small state great.’ I felt an interest in 
thy strenuous and troubled career. I believe that know- 
ledge, to spread amongst the nations, must first find a 


HAROLD. 


97 


nursery in the brain of kings ; and I saw in the deed- 
doer, the agent of the thinker. In those espousals, on 
which with untiring obstinacy thy heart is set, I might 
sympathize with thee; perchance ” (here a melancholy 
smile flitted over the student’s pale lips), “ perchance 
even as a lover: priest though I be now, and dead to 
human love, once I loved, and I know what it is to strive 
in hopq, and to waste in despair. But my sympathy, I 
own, was more given to the prince than to the lover. It 
was natural that I, priest and foreigner, should obey at 
first the orders of Mauger, arch-prelate and spiritual 
chief, and the more so as the law was with him ; but when 
I resolved to stay, despite thy sentence which banished 
me, I resolved to aid thee ; for if with Mauger was the 
dead law, with thee was the living cause of man. Duke 
William, on thy nuptials with Matilda of Flanders rests 
thy duchy — rest, perchance, the mightier sceptres that 
are yet to come. Thy title disputed, thy principality new 
and unestablished, thou, above all men, must link thy new 
race with the ancient line of kings and kaisars. Ma- 
tilda is the descendant of Charlemagne and Alfred. Thy 
realm is insecure as long as France undermines it with 
plots, and threatens it with arms. Marry the daughter 
of Baldwin — and thy wife is the niece of Henry of France 
— thine enemy becomes thy kinsman, and must, perforce, 
be thine ally. This is not all ; it were strange, looking 
round this disordered royalty of England — a childless 
king, who loves thee better than his own blood ; a divided 
nobility, already adopting the fashions of the stranger, 
I— 9 G 


98 


HAROLD. 


and accustomed to shift their faith from Saxon to Dane, 
and Dane to Saxon ; a people that has respect indeed 
for brave chiefs, b it, seeing new men rise daily from new 
houses, has no reverence for ancient lines and hereditary 
names ; with a vast mass of villeins or slaves that have 
no interest in the land or its rulers ; strange, seeing all 
this, if thy day-dreams have not also beheld a Norman 
sovereign on the throne of Saxon Englaud. And thy 
marriage with the descendant of the best and most be- 
loved prince that ever ruled these realms, if it does not 
give thee a title to the land, may help to conciliate its 
affections, and to fix thy posterity in the halls of their 
mother’s kin. Have I said eno’ to prove why, for the 
sake of nations, it were wise for the pontiff to stretch the 
harsh girths of the law ? why I might be enabled to prove 
to the Court of Rome the policy of conciliating the love, 
and strengthening the hands, of the Norman count, who 
may so become the main prop of Christendom ? Yea, 
have I said eno’ to prove that the humble clerk can look 
on mundane matters with the eye of a man who can make 
small states great ? ” 

William remained speechless — his hot blood thrilled 
with a half-superstitious awe; so thoroughly had this 
obscure Lombard divine detailed all the intricate meshes 
of that policy with which he himself had interwoven his 
pertinacious affection for the Flemish princess, that it 
seemed to him as if he listened to the echo of his own 
heart, or heard from a soothsayer the voice of his most 
secret thoughts 


HAROLD. 


99 


The priest continued : — 

“ Wherefore, thus considering, I said to myself, Now 
has the time come, Lanfrane the Lombard, to prove to 
thee whether thy self-boastings have been a vain deceit, 
or whether, in this age of iron, and amidst this lust of 
gold, thou, the penniless and the feeble, canst make 
knowledge and wit of more avail to the destinies of kings 
than armed men and filled treasuries. I believe in that 
power. I am ready for the test. Pause, judge from 
what the Lord of Breteuil hath said to thee, what will 
be the defection of thy lords if the Pope confirm the 
threatened excommunication of thine uncle. Thine armies 
will r6t from thee ; thy treasures will be like dry leaves 
in thy coffers ; the Duke of Bretagne will claim thy 
duchy as the legitimate heir of thy forefathers ; the Duke 
of Burgundy will league with the King of France, and 
march on thy faithless legions under the banner of the 
Church. The hand-writing is on the walls, and thy 
sceptre and thy crown will pass away.” 

William set his teeth firmly, and breathed hard. 

“ But send me to Rome, thy delegate, and the thunder 
of Mauger shall fall powerless. Marry Matilda, bring 
her to thy halls, place her on thy throne, laugh to scorn 
the interdict of thy traitor uncle, and rest assured that 
the Pope shall send thee his dispensation to thy spousals, 
and his benison on thy marriage-bed. And when this 
be done, Duke William, give me not abbacies and pre- 
lacies ; multiply books, and stablish schools, and bid thy 

Lore. 


100 


HAROLD. 


servant found the royalty of knowledge, as thou shalt 
found the sovereignty of war.” 

The duke, transported from himself, leaped up and 
embraced the priest with his vast arms ; he kissed his 
cheeks, he kissed his forehead, as, in those days, king 
kissed king with “the kiss of peace.” 

“ Lanfranc of Pavia,” he cried, “ whether thou succeed 
or fail, thou hast my love and gratitude evermore. As 
thou speakest, would I have spoken, had I been born, 
framed, and reared as thou. And, verily, when I hear 
thee, I blush for the boasts of my barbarous pride, that 
no man can wield my mace, or bend my bow. Poor is 
the strength of body — a web of law can entangle it, and 
a word from a priest’s mouth can palsy. But thou ! — 
let me look at thee.” 

William gazed on the pale face ; from head to foot he 
scanned the delicate, slender form, and then turning 
away, he said to Fitzosborne — 

“ Thou, whose mailed hand hath felled a war-steed, 
art thou not ashamed of thyself? The day is coming, I 
see it afar, when these slight men shall set their feet upon 
our corslets.” 

He paused as if in thought, again paced the room, and 
stopped before the crucifix, and image of the Virgin, 
which stood in a niche near the bed-head. 

“Right, noble prince,” said the priest’s low voice. 
“ Pause there for a solution to all enigmas; there view 
the symbol of all-enduring power ; there learn its ends 


HAROLD. 


101 


below — comprehend the account it must yield above. 
To your thoughts and your prayers we leave you.” 

He took the stalwart arm of Taillefer, as he spoke 
and, with a grave obeisance to Fitzosborne, left the 
chamber. 


CHAPTER III. 

The next morning William was long closeted alone 
with Lanfranc — that man, among the most remarkable 
of his age, of whom it was said, that “to comprehend 
the extent of his talents, one must be Herodian in 
grammar, Aristotle in dialectics, Cicero in rhetoric, 
Augustine and Jerome in Scriptural lore,”* — and ere 
the noon the duke’s gallant and princely train were 
ordered to be in readiness for return home. 

The crowd in the broad space, and the citizens from 
their boats in the river, gazed on the knights and steeds 
of that gorgeous company, already drawn up and await- 
ing without the open gates the sound of the trumpets 
that should announce the duke’s departure. Before the 
hall-door in the inner court were his own men. The 
snow-white steed of Odo ; the alezan of Fitzosborne ; 
and, to the marvel of all, a small palfrey plainly capa- 
risoned What did that palfrey amid those steeds? — 
the steeds themselves seemed to chafe at the companion- 


* Ord. Vital. 


102 


HAROLD 


ship; the dake's charger pricked up his ears and snorted; 
the Lord of Breteuil’s alezan kicked out, as the poor nag 
humbly drew near to make acquaintance ; and the pre- 
late’s white barb, with red vicious eye, and ears laid 
down, ran fiercely at the low-bred intruder, with difficulty 
reined in by the squires, who shared the beast’s amaze 
and resentment. 

Meanwhile the duke thoughtfully took his way to Ed- 
ward’s apartments. In the ante room were many monks 
and many knights; but conspicuous amongst them all 
was a tall and stately veteran, leaning on a great two- 
handed sword, and whose dress and fashion of beard 
were those of the last generation, the men who had fought 
with Canute the Great or Edmund Ironsides. So grand 
was the old mau’s aspect, and so did he contrast in 
appearance, the narrow garb and shaven chins of those 
around, that the duke was roused from his reverie at the 
sight, and marvelling why one, evidently a chief of high 
rank, had neither graced the banquet in his honor, nor 
been presented to his notice, he turned to the earl of 
Hereford, who approached him with gay salutation, and 
inquired the name and title of the bearded man in the 
loose flowing robe. 

“Know you not, in truth?” said the lively earl, in 
some wonder. “ In him you see the great rival of God- 
win. He is the hero of the Danes, as Godwin is of the 
Saxons, a true son of Odin, Si ward Earl of the North- 
umbrians.” * 


* Siward was almost a giant ( pene gigas statura). There are 


HAROLD. 


103 


“Notre Dame be my aid, — his fame hath oft filled my 
ears, and I should have lost the most welcome sight in 
merrie England had I not now beheld him.” 

Therewith, the duke approached courteously, and, 
doffing the cap he had hitherto retained, he greeted the 
old hero with those compliments which the Norman had 
already learned in the courts of the Frank. 

The stout earl received them coldly, and replying in 
Danish to William’s Romance tongue, he said, 

“ Pardon, Count of the Normans, if these old lips 
cling to their old words. Both of us, methinks, date our 
lineage from the lands of the Norse. Suffer Siward to 
speak the language the sea-kings spoke. The old oak 
is not to be transplanted, and the old man keeps the 
ground where his youth took root.”. 

The duke, who with some difficulty comprehended the 
general meaning of Siward’s speech, bit his lip, but re- 
plied courteously, — 

“ The youths of all nations may learn from renowned 
age. Much doth it shame me that I cannot commune 

some curious anecdotes of this hero, immortalized by Shakspere, 
in the “Bromton Chronicle.” His grandfather is said to have 
been a bear, who fell in love with a Danish lady ; and his father, 
Beorn, retained some of the traces of the parental physiognomy in 
a pair of pointed ears. The origin of this fable seems evident. 
His grandfather was a Berserker: for whether that name be de- 
rived, as is more generally supposed, from bare-sark, or rather 
from bear-sark, that is, whether this grisly specimen of the Viking 
genus fought in his shirt or his bear-skin, the name equally lends 
itself to those mystifications from which half the old legends, ^ 
whe.her of Greece or Norway, are derived. 


104 


HAROLD. 


with thee in the ancestral tongue ; but the angels at least 
know the language of the Norman Christian, and I pray 
them and the saints for a calm end to thy brave career.” 

“ Pray not to angel or saint for Siward son of Beorn,” 
said the old man hastily ; “ let me not have a cow’s 
death, but a warrior’s ; die in my mail of proof, axe in 
hand, and helm on head. And such may be my death, 
if Edward the king reads my rede and grants my prayer.” 

“ I have influence with the king,” said William ; “ name 
thy wish, that I may back it.” 

“The fiend forfend,” said the grim earl, “that a 
foreign prince should sway England^ king, or that thegn 
and earl should ask other backing than leal service and 
just cause. If Edward be the saint men call him, he 
will loose me on the hell-wolf, without other cry than his 
own conscience.” 

The duke turned inquiringly to Rolf ; who, thus ap- 
pealed to, said, — 

“ Siward urges my uncle to espouse the cause of Mal- 
colm of Cumbria against the bloody tyrant Macbeth ; and 
but for the disputes with the traitor Godwin, the king 
had long since turned his arms to Scotland.” 

“ Call not traitors, young man,” said the earl, in high 
disdain, “those who, with all their faults and crimes, 
have placed thy kinsman on the -throne of Canute.” 

“Hush, Rolf,” said the duke, observing the fierce 
young Norman about to reply hastily. “ But methought, 
though my knowledge of English troubles is but scant, 
* that Siward was the sworn foe to Godwin ? ” 


HAROLD. 


105 


“ Foe to him in his power, friend to him in his wrongs,” 
answered Si ward. “And if England needs defenders 
when I and Godwin are in our shrouds, there is but on6 
man worthy of the days of old, and his name is Harold, 
the outlaw.” 

William’s face changed remarkably, despite all his 
dissimulation ; and, with a slight inclination of his head, 
he strode on, moody and irritated. 

“ This Harold ! this Harold ! ” he muttered to himself, 
“ all brave men speak to me of this Harold ! Even my 
Norman knights name him with reluctant reverence, and 
even his foes do him honor; — verily his shadow is cast 
from exile over all the land.” 

Thus murmuring, he passed the throng with less than 
his wonted affable grace, and pushing back the officers 
who wished to precede him, entered, without ceremony, 
Edward’s private chamber. 

The king was alone, but talking loudly to himself, 
gesticulating vehemently, and altogether so changed 
from his ordinary placid apathy of mien, that William 
drew back in alarm and awe. Often had he heard indi- 
rectly, that of late years Edward was said to see visions, 
and be rapt from himself into the world of spirit and 
shadow ; and such, he now doubted not, was the strange 
paroxysm of which he was made the witness. Edward’s 
eyes were fixed on him, but evidently without recognizing 
his presence ; the king’s hands were outstretched, and he 
cried aloud in a voice of sharp anguish — 

“ Sanguelac, Sanguelac ! — the Lake of Blood I — the 
9 * 


106 


HAROLD. 


waves spread, the waves redden! Mother of mercy — 
where is the ark ? — where the Ararat ? — Fly — fly — this 
way — this ” and he caught convulsive hold of Wil- 

liam’s arm. “No! there the corpses are piled — high 
and higher — there the horse of the Apocalypse tramples 
the dead in their gore.” 

In great horror, William took the king, now gasping 
on his breast, in his arms, and laid him on his bed, be- 
neath its canopy of state, all blazoned with the martlets 
and cross of his insignia. Slowly Edward came to him- 
self, with heavy sighs ; and when at length he sate up 
and looked round, it was with evident unconsciousness 
of what had passed across his haggard and wandering 
spirit, for he said with his usual drowsy calmness — 

“ Thanks, Guillaume, bien dime, for rousing me from 
unseasoned sleep. How fares it with thee?” 

“ Nay, how with thee, dear friend and king ? thy dreams 
have been troubled.” 

“Not so; I slept so heavily, methinks I could not 
have dreamed at all. But thou art clad as for a journey 
— spur on thy heel, staff in thy hand ! ” 

“ Long since, 0 dear host, I sent Odo to tell thee of 
the ill news from Normandy that compelled me to de- 
part. ” 

“ I remember — I remember me now,” said Edward, 
passing his pale womanly fingers over his forehead. “ The 
heathen rage against thee. Ah ! my poor brother, a 
crown is an awful head-gear. While yet time, why not 


HAROLD. 


101 


both seek some quiet convent, and put away these earthly 
cares ? ” 

William smiled and shook his head. ‘‘Nay, holy Ed- 
ward, from all I have seen of convents, it is a dream to 
think that the monk’s serge hides a calmer breast than 
the warrior’s mail, or the king’s ermine. Now give me 
thy benison, for I go.” 

He knelt as he spoke, and Edward bent his hands over 
his head, and blessed him. Then, taking from his own 
neck a collar of zimmes (jewels and uncut gems), of great 
price, the king threw it over the broad throat bent before 
him, and rising, clapped his hands. A small door opened, 
giving a glimpse of the oratory within, and a monk ap- 
peared. 

“ Father, have my behests been fulfilled ? — hath Hugo- 
line, my treasurer, dispensed the gifts that I spoke of?” 

“ Yerily yes ; vault, coffer, and garde-robe — stall and 
meuse — are well-nigh drained,” answered the monk, with 
a sour look at the Norman, whose native avarice gleamed 
in his dark eyes as he heard the answer. 

“ Thy train go not hence empty-handed,” said Edward 
fondly. “ Thy father’s halls sheltered the exile, and the 
exile forgets not the sole pleasure of a king — the power 
to requite. We may never meet again, William — age 
creeps over me, and who will succeed to my thorny 
throne ? ” 

William longed to answer, — to tell the hope that con- 
sumed him, — to remind his cousin of the vague promise 
in their youth, that the Norman count should succeed to 


108 


HAROLD. 


that “thorny throne but the presence of the Saxon 
monk repelled him, nor was there in Edward’s uneasy 
look much to allure him on. 

“ But peace,” continued the king, “be between thine 
and mine, as between thee and me ! ” 

“Amen,” said the duke, “and I leave thee at least free 
from the proud rebels who so long disturbed thy reign. 
This house of Godwin, thou wilt not again let it tower 
above thy palace?” 

“ Nay, the future is with God and his saints,” answered 
Edward feebly. “ But Godwin is old — older than I, and 
bowed by many storms.” 

“Ay, his sons are more to be dreaded, and kept aloof 
— mostly Harold!” 

“ Harold, — he was ever obedient, he alone of his kith ; 
truly my soul mourns for Harold,” said the king, sighing. 

“ The serpent’s egg hatches but the serpent. Keep 
thy heel on it,” said William, sternly. 

“ Thou speakest well,” said the irresolute prince, who 
never seemed three days or three minutes together in the 
same mind. “ Harold is in Ireland — there let him rest : 
better for all.” 

“ For all,” said the duke ; “ so the saints keep thee, 
O royal saint ! ” 

He kissed the king’s hand, and strode away to the hall 
where Odo, Fitzosborne, and the priest Lanfranc awaited 
him. And so that day, half-way towards the fair town 
of Dover, rode Duke William, and by the side of his roan 
barb ambled the priest’s palfrey. 


HAROLD. 


109 

Behind came his gallant train, and with tumbrils and 
sumpter-mules laden with baggage, and enriched by Ed- 
ward’s gifts; while Welch hawks, and steeds of great 
price from the pastures of Surrey and the plains of Cam- 
bridge and York, attested no less acceptably than zimme, 
and golden chain, and broidered robe, the munificence 
of the grateful king.* 

As they journeyed on, and the fame jf the Juke’s 
coming was sent abroad by the bodes or messengers, 
despatched to prepare the towns through which he was 
to pass for an arrival sooner than expected, the more 
high-born youths of England, especially those of the 
party counter to that of the banished Godwin, came 
round the ways to gaze upon that famous chief, who, 
from the age of fifteen, had wielded the most redoubtable 
sword of Christendom. And those youths wore the Nor- 
man garb: and in the towns, Norman counts held his 
stirrup to dismount, and Norman hosts spread the fasti- 
dious board ; and when, at the eve of the next day, Wil- 
liam saw the pennon of one of his own favorite chiefs 
waving in the van of armed men, that sallied forth from 
the towers of Dover (the key of the coast), he turned 
to the Lombard, still by his side, and said : — 

“ Is not England part of Normandy already ? ” 

And the Lombard answered : — 

“ The fruit is well-nigh ripe, and the first breeze will 


* Wace. 


I. — 10 


no 


HAROLD. 


shake it to thy feet. Pat not out thy hand too soon. 
Let the wind do its work.” 

And the duke made reply, 

“As thou thinkest, so think I. And there is but one 
wind in the halls of heaven that can waft the fruit to the 
feet of another.” 

“And that ? ” asked the Lombard. 

“Is the wind that blows from the shores of Ireland, 
when it fills the sails of Harold, son of Godwin.” 

“ Thou fearest that man, and why ? ” asked the Lom- 
bard with interest. 

And the duke answered : — 

“ Because in the breast of Harold beats the heart of 
England.” 


BOOK THIRD. 


THE HOUSE OP GODWIN. 


CHAPTER I. 

And all went to the desire of Duke William the Nor- 
man. With one hand he curbed his proud vassals, and 
drove back his fierce foes : with the other, he led to the 
altar Matilda, the maid of Flanders ; and all happened 
as Lanfranc had foretold. William’s most formidable 
enemy, the King of France, ceased to conspire against 
his new kinsman ; and the neighboring princes said, 
“ The Bastard hath become one of us since he placed by 
his side the descendant of Charlemagne.” And Mauger, 
Archbishop of Rouen, excommunicated the duke and 
his bride, and the ban fell idle ; for Lanfranc sent from 
Rome the Pope’s dispensation and blessing, conditionally 
only that bride and bridegroom founded each a church. 
And Mauger was summoned before the synod, and ac- 
cused of unclerical crimes ; and they deposed him from 
his state, and took from him abbacies and sees. And 
England, every day waxed more and more Norman ; 

( 111 ) 


112 


HAROLD. 


and Edward grew more feeble and infirm, and there 
seemed not a barrier between the Norman duke and the 
English throne, when suddenly the wind blew in the halls 
of heaven, and filled the sails of Harold the Earl. 

And his ships came to the mouth of the Severn. And 
the people of Somerset and Devon, a mixed and mainly 
a Celtic race, who bore small love to the Saxons, drew 
together against him, and he put them to flight.* 

Meanwhile, Godwin and his sons Sweyn, Tostig, and 
Gurth, who had taken refuge in that very Flanders from 
which William the Duke had won his bride— (for Tostig 
had wed, previously, the sister of Matilda, the rose of 
Flanders ; and Count Baldwin had, for his sons-in-law, 
both Tostig and William), — meanwhile, I say, these, not 
holpen by the Count Baldwin, but helping themselves, 
lay at Bruges, ready to join Harold the Earl. And Ed- 
ward, advised of this from the anxious Norman, caused 
forty ships j* to be equipped, and put them under com- 
mand of Rolf, Earl of Hereford. The ships lay at Sand- 
wich in wait for Godwin. But the old earl got from them, 
and landed quietly on the southern coast. And the fort 
of Hastings opened to his coming with a shout from its 
armed men. 

All the boatmen, all the mariners, far and near, 
thronged to him, with sail and with shield, with sword 
and with oar. All Kent (the foster-mother of the 
Saxons) sent forth the cry, “Life or death with Earl 


* Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 


f Some writers say fifty 


HAROLD. 


113 


Godwin.”* Fast over the length and breadth of the 
land went the bodes f and riders of the earl ; and hosts, 
with one voice, answered the cry of the children of 
Horsa, “ Life or death with Earl Godwin.” And the 
ships of King Edward, in dismay, turned flag and prow 
to London, and the fleet of Harold sailed on. So the 
old earl met his young son on the deck of a war-ship, 
that had once borne the Raven of the Dane. 

Swelled and gathering sailed the armament of the 
English men. Slow up the Thames it sailed, and on 
either shore marched tumultuous the swarming multi- 
tudes. And King Edward sent after more help, but it 
came up very late. So the fleet of the earl nearly faced 
the Juliet Keape of London, and abode at Southwark 
till the flood-tide came up. When he had mustered his 
host, then came the flood-tide. J 


CHAPTER II. 

King Edward sat, not on his throne, but on a chair 
of state, in the presence-chamber of his palace of West- 
minster. His diadem, with the three zimmes shaped into 
o triple trefoil § on his brow, his sceptre in his right hand. 


* Hovenden. f Bodes , i. e. messengers. 

J Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 

g Or Fleur-de-lis, which seems to have been a common form of 
ornament with the Saxon kings. 

10 * 


H 


114 


HAROLD. 


His royal robe, tight to the throat, with a broad band 
of gold, flowed to his feet ; and at the fold gathered 
round the left knee, where now the kings of England 
wear the badge of St. George, was embroidered a simple 
cross.* In that chamber met the thegns and proceres 
of his realm : but not they alone. No national Witan 
there assembled, but a council of war, composed at least 
one-third part of Normans — counts, knights, prelates, 
and abbots of high degree. 

And King Edward looked a king ! The habitual 
lethargic meekness had vanished from his face, and the 
large crown threw a shadow, like a frown, over his brow. 
His spirit seemed to have risen from the weight it took 
from the sluggish blood of his father, Ethelred the 
Unready, and to have remounted to the brighter and 
earlier source of ancestral heroes. Worthy in that hour 
he seemed to boast the blood and wield the sceptre of 
Athelstan and Alfred. 

Thus spoke the king: 

“ Right worthy and beloved, my ealdermen, earls, and 
thegns of England ; noble and familiar, my friends and 
guests, counts and chevaliers of Normandy, my mother’s 
land; and you, our spiritual chiefs, above all ties of 
birth and country, Christendom your common appanage, 
and from Heaven your seignories and fiefs — hear the 
words of Edward, the King of England, under grace of 
the Most High. The rebels are in our river ; open yonder 


* Bayeux tapestry. 


HAROLD. 


115 


.attice, and you will see the piled shields glittering from 
their barks, and hear the hum of their hosts. Not a 
bow has yet been drawn, not a sword left its sheath ; yet 
on the opposite side of the river are our fleets of forty 
sail — along the strand, between our palace and the 
gates of London, are arrayed our armies. And this 
pause because Godwin the traitor hath demanded truce, 
and his nuncius waits without. Are ye willing that we 
should hear the message ? or would ye rather that we 
dismiss the messenger unheard, and pass at once, to rank 
and to sail, the war-cry of a Christian king, * Holy Crosse 
and our Lady ! ’ ” 

The king ceased, his left hand grasping firm the 
leopard head carved on his throne, and his sceptre un. 
trembling in his lifted hand. 

A murmur of Notre Dame , Notre Dame , the war-cry 
of the Normans, was heard amongst the stranger-knights 
of the audience ; but haughty and arrogant as those 
strangers were, no one presumed to take precedence, in 
England’s danger, of men English born 

Slowly then rose Aired, Bishop of Winchester, the 
worthiest prelate in all the land.* 

“Kingly son,” said the bishop, “evil is the strife be- 

* The York Chronicle , written by an Englishman, Stubbs, gives 
this eminent person an excellent character as peace-maker. “ He 
could make the warmest friends of foes the most hostile. “ De 
inimicissimis, amicissimos faceret.” This gentle priest had yet the 
courage to curse the Norman Conqueror in the midst of his barons. 
That scene is not within the range of this work, but it is very 
strikingly told in the Chronicle. 


116 


HAROLD. 


tween men of the same blood and lineage, nor justified 
but by extremes, which have not yet been made clear to 
us. And ill would it sound throughout Eugland were it 
said that the king’s council gave, perchance, his city of 
London to sword and fire, and rent his land in twain, 
when a word in season might have disbanded yon armies, 
and given to your throne a submissive subject, where now 
you are menaced by a formidable rebel. Wherefore, I 
say, admit the nuncius.” 

Scarcely had Aired resumed his seat, before Robert 
the Norman prelate of Canterbury started up — a man, 
it was said, of worldly learning — and exclaimed — 

“To admit the messenger is to approve the treason 
I do beseech the king to consult only his own royal heart 
and royal honor. Reflect — each moment of delay swells 
the rebel hosts — strengthens their cause ; of each moment 
they avail themselves, to allure to their side the misguided 
citizens. Delay but proves our own weakness; a king’s 
name is a tower of strength, but only when fortified by a 
king’s authority. Give the signal for — war I call it not 
— no — for chastisement and justice.” 

“As speaks my brother of Canterbury, speak I,” said 
William, Bishop of London, another Norman. 

But then there rose up a form at whose rising all 
murmurs were hushed. 

Grey aud vast, as some image of a gone and mightier 
age, towered over all Siward, the son of Beorn, the great 
Earl of Northumbria. 

“We have nought to do with the Normans. Were 


HAROLD. 


11 1 


they on the river, and our countrymen, Dane or Saxon, 
alone in this hall, small doubt of the King’s choice, and 
niddering were the man who spoke of peace ; but when 
Norman advises the dwellers of England to go forth and 
slay each other, no sword of mine shall be drawn at his 
hest. Who shall say that Siward of the Strong Arm, 
the grandson of the Berserker, ever turned from a foe ? 
The foe, son of Ethelred, sits in these halls ; I fight thy 
battles when I say Nay to the Norman! Brothers-in- 
arms of the kindred race and common tongue, Dane and 
Saxon long intermingled, proud alike of Canute the 
glorious and Alfred the wise, ye will hear the man whom 
Godwin, our countryman, sends to us ; he at least will 
speak our tongue, and he knows our laws. If the demand 
he delivers be just, such as a king should grant, and our 
Witan should hear, woe to him who refuses ; if unjust be 
the demand, shame to him who accedes. Warrior sends 
to warrior, countryman to countryman ; hear we as coun- 
trymen, and judge as warriors. I have said.” 

The utmost excitement and agitation followed the 
speech of Siward, — unanimous applause from the Saxons, 
even those who in times of peace were most under the 
Norman contagion ; but no words can paint the wrath 
and scorn of the Normans. They spoke loud and many 
at a time ; the greatest disorder prevailed. But the 
majority being English, there could be no doubt as to 
the decision, and Edward, to whom the emergence gave 
both a dignity and presence of mind rare to him, resolved 
vO terminate the dispute at once. He stretched forth his 


118 


HAROLD. 


sceptre, and motioning to his chamberlain, bade him in- 
troduce the nuncius.* 

A blank disappointment, not unmixed with apprehen- 
sive terror, succeeded the turbulent excitement of the 
Normans; for well they knew that the consequences, if 
not condition, of negotiations, would be their own downfall 
and banishment at the least ; — happy, it might be, to 
escape massacre at the hands of the exasperated multi- 
tude. 

The door at the end of the room opened, and the nun- 
cius appeared. He was a sturdy, broad-shouldered man, 
of middle age, and in the long loose garb originally 
national with the Saxon, though then little in vogue ; 
his beard thick and fair, his eyes grey and calm — a chief 
of Kent, where all the prejudices of his race were strong- 
est, and whose yeomanry claimed in war the hereditary 
right to be placed in the front of battle. 

He made his manly but deferential salutation to the 
august council as he approached ; and pausing midway 
between the throne and door, he fell on his knees with 
out thought of shame, for the king to whom he knelt was 
the descendant of Woden, and the heir of Hengist. At 
a sign and a brief word from the king, still on his knees t 
Vebba, the Kentman, spoke. 

“ To Edward, son of Ethelred, his most gracious king 
and lord, Godwin, son of Wolnoth, sends faithful and 

* Heralds, though probably the word is Saxon, were not then 
known in the modern acceptation of the word. The name given 
to the messenger or envoy who fulfilled that office was bode or 


nuncius. 


HAROLD. 


119 


humble greeting, by Yebba, the thegn-born. He prays 
the king to hear him in kindness, and judge of him with 
mercy. Not against the king comes he hither with ships 
and arms ; but against those only who would stand be- 
tween the king’s heart and the subject’s : those who have 
divided a house against itself, and parted son and father, 
man and wife. — ” 

At those last words Edward’s sceptre trembled in his 
hand, and his face grew almost stern. 

“ Of the king, Godwin but prays with all submiss and 
earnest prayer, to reverse the unrighteous outla wry against 
him and his ; to restore to him and his sons their just 
possessions and well-won honors ; and, more than all, to 
replace them where they have sought by loving service 
not unworthily to stand, in the grace of their born lord, 
and in the van of those who would uphold the laws and 
liberties of England. This done — the ships sail back to 
their haven ; the thegn seeks his homestead, and the ceorl 
returns to the plough ; for with Godwin are no strangers: 
and his force is but the love of his countrymen.” 

“ Hast thou said ? ” quoth the king. 

“I have said.” 

'‘Retire, and await our answer.” 

The Thegn of Kent was then led back into an ante- 
room, in which, armed from head to heel in ring-mail, 
were several Normans whose youth or station did not 
admit them into the council, but still of no mean interest 
in the discussion, from the lands and possessions they had 
already contrived to gripe out of the demesnes of the 


120 


IIAROLD. 


exiles; — onrning for battle and eager for the word. 
Amongst these was Mallet de Graville. 

The Norman valor of this young knight was, as we 
have seen, guided by Norman intelligence ; and he had 
not disdained, since William’s departure, to study the 
tongue of the country in which he hoped to exchange his 
mortgaged tower on the Seine, for some fair baronj on 
the Humber or the Thames. 

While the rest of his proud countrymen stood aloof, 
with eyes of silent scorn, from the homely nuncius, Mallet 
approached him with courteous bearing, ^ud said in 
Saxon : — 

“ May I crave to know the issue of thy message from 
the reb — that is, from the doughty earl?” 

“I wait to learn it,” said Yebba, bluffly. 

“They heard thee throughout, then?” 

“ Throughout.” 

“Friendly sir,” said the Sire de Graville, seeking to 
subdue the tone of irony habitual to him, and acquired, 
perhaps, from his maternal ancestry, the Franks. 
“ Friendly and peace-making sir, dare I so far venture to 
intrude on the secrets of thy mission as to ask if Godwin 
demands, among other reasonable items, the head of thy 
humble servant — not by name, indeed, for my name is as 
yet unknown to him — but as one of the unhappy class 
called Normans?” 

“Had Earl Godwin,” returned the nuncius, “thought 
fit to treat for peace by asking vengeance, he would have 
chosen other spokesman. The earl asks but his own ; 


HAROLD. 


121 


and thy head is not, I trow, a part of his goods and 
chattels.” 

“ This is comforting,” said Mallet. “ Marry, I thank 
thee, Sir Saxon ; and thou speakest like a brave man and 
an honest. And if we fall to blows, as I suspect we 
shall, I should deem it a favor of our Lady the Virgin 
if she send thee across my way. Next to a fair friend, I 
love a bold foe.” 

Yebba smiled, for he liked the sentiment, and the tone 
and air of the young knight pleased his rough mind, 
despite his prejudices against the stranger. 

Encouraged by the smile, Mallet seated himself on the 
corner of the long table that skirted the room, and with 
a debonnair gesture, invited Vebba to do the same ; then 
looking at him gravely, he resumed — 

“ So frank and courteous thou art, Sir Envoy, that I 
yet intrude on thee my ignorant and curious questions.” 

“Speak out, Norman.” 

“ How comes it, then, that you English so love this 
Earl Godwin ? — Still more, why think you it right and 
proper that King Edward should love him too ? It is a 
question I have often asked, and to which I am not likely 
in these halls to get answer satisfactory. If I know 
aught of your troublous history, this same earl has 
changed sides oft eno’ ; first for the Saxon, then for 
Canute the Dane — Canute dies, and your friend takes 
up arms for the Saxon again. He yields to the advice 
of your Witan, and sides with Hardicanute and Harold, 
vhe Danes — a letter, nathless, is written as from Emma, 
I. — 11 


122 


HAROLD. 


the mother to the young Saxon princes, Edward and 
Alfred, inviting them over to England, and promising 
aid j the saints protect Edward, who continues to say 
aves in Normandy — Alfred comes over, Earl Godwin 
meets him, and unless belied, does him homage, and 
swears to him faith. Nay, listen yet. This Godwin, 
tfhum ye love so, then leads Alfred and his train to tho 
ville of Guildford, I think ye call it, — fair quarters enow. 
At the dead of the night rush in King Harold’s men, 
seize prince and follower, six hundred men in all ; and 
next morning, saving only every tenth man, they are 
tortured and put to death. The prince is borne off to 
London, and shortly afterwards his eyes are torn out in 
the Islet of Ely, and he dies of the anguish ! That ye 
should love Earl Godwin withal may be strange, but yet 
possible. But is it possible, cher Envoy, for the king to 
love the man who thus betrayed his brother to the 
shambles ? ” 

“ All this is a Norman fable,” said the Thegn of Kent, 
with a disturbed visage ; “ and Godwin cleared himself 
on oath of all share in the foul murder of Alfred.” 

“ The oath, I have heard, was backed,” said the knight 
dryly, “by a present to Hardicanute, who, after the death 
of King Harold, resolved to avenge the black butchery ; 
a present, I say, of a gilt ship manned by four-score 
warriors, with gold-hilted swords, and gilt helms. — But 
let this pass.” 

“Let it pass,” echoed Yebba, with a sigh. “Bloody 
were those times, and unholy their secrets.” 


HAROLD. 


123 


“ Yet, answer me still, why love you Earl Godwin ? 
He hath changed sides from party to party, and in each 
change won lordships and lands. He is ambitious and 
grasping, ye all allow ; for the ballads sung in your 
streets liken him to the thorn and the bramble, at which 
the sheep leaves his wool. He is haughty and overbear- 
ing. Tell me, 0 Saxon, frank Saxon, why you love 
Godwin the Earl ? Fain would I know ; for, please the 
saints (and you and your earl so permitting), I mean to 
live and die in this merrie England ; and it would be 
pleasant to learn that I have but to do as Earl Godwin, 
in order to win love from the English.” 

The stout Yebba looked perplexed ; but after stroking 
his beard thoughtfully, he answered thus — 

“ Though of Kent, and therefore in his earldom, I am 
not one of Godwin’s especial party ; for that reason was 
I chosen his bode. Those who are under him doubtless 
love a chief liberal to give and strong to protect. The 
old age of a great leader gathers reverence, as an oak 
gathers moss. But to me, and those like me, living 
peaceful at home, shunning courts, and tempting not 
broils, Godwin the man is not dear — it is Godwin the 
thing. ” 

“ Though I do my best to know your language,” said 
the knight, “ye have phrases that might puzzle King 
Solomon. What meanest thou by * Godwin the thing ? ’ ” 
“ That which to us Godwin only seems to uphold. We 
love justice ; whatever his offences, Godwin was banished 
unjustly. We love our laws ; Godwin was dishonored 


124 


HAROLD. 


by maintaining them. We love England, and are devoured 
by strangers; Godwin’s cause is England’s, and — 
stranger, forgive me for not concluding.” 

Then, examining the young Norman with a look of 
rough compassion, he laid his large hand upon the 
knight’s shoulder and whispered, — 

“Take my advice — and fly.” 

“Ely!” said De Graville, reddening. “Is it to fly, 
think you, that I have put on my mail, and girded my 
sword ? ” 

“Vain — vain! Wasps are fierce, but the swarm is 
doomed when the straw is kindled. I tell you this — fly 
in time, and you are safe ; but let the king be so mis- 
guided as to count on arms, and strive against yon 
multitude, and verily before nightfall not one Norman 
will be found alive within ten miles of the city. Look to 
it, youth! Perhaps thou hast a mother — let her not 
mourn a son ! ” 

Before the Norman could shape into Saxon sufficiently 
polite and courtly his profound and indignant disdain of 
the counsel, his sense of the impertinence with which his 
shoulder had been profaned, and his mother’s son had 
been warned, the nuncius was again summoned into the 
presence-chamber. Nor did he return into the ante-room, 
but conducted forthwith from the council — his brief 
answer received — to the stairs of the palace, he reached 
the boat in which he had come, and was rowed back to 
the ship that held the earl and his sons. 

Now this was the manoeuvre of Godwin’s array. His 


HAROLD. 


125 


vessels having passed London Bridge, had rested awhile 
on the banks of the Southward suburb (Soutli-weorde) 
— since called South wark — and the king’s ships lay to 
the north ; but the fleet of the earl’s, after a brief halt, 
veered majestically round, and coming close to the palace 
id Westminster, inclined northward, as if to hem the 
king’s ships. Meanwhile the land forces drew up close 
to the Strand, almost within bow-shot of the king’s 
troops, that kept the ground inland ; thus Yebba saw 
before him, so near as scarcely to be distinguished from 
each other, on the river the rival fleets, on the shore the 
rival armaments. 

High above all the vessels towered the majestic bark, 
or sesca, that had borne Harold from the Irish shores. 
Its fashion was that of the ancient sea-kings, to one of 
whom it had belonged. Its curved and mighty prow, 
richly gilded, stood out far above the waves : the prow, 
the head of the sea-snake ; the stern its spire ; head and 
spire alike glittering in the sun. 

The boat drew up to the lofty side of the vessel, a 
ladder was lowered, the nuncius ascended lightly and 
stood on deck. At the farther end grouped the sailors, 
few in number, and at respectful distance from the earl 
and his sous. 

Godwin himself was but half-armed. His head was 
bare, nor had he other weapon of offence than the gilt 
battle-axe of the Danes — weapon as much of office as 
of war ; but his broad breast was covered with the ring- 
mail of the time. His stature was lower than that of 
11 * 


126 


HAROLD. 


any of his sons ; Lor did his form exhibit greater physi- 
cal strength than that of a man, well-shaped, robust, and 
deep of chest, who still preserved in age the pith and 
sinew of mature manhood. Neither, indeed, did legend 
or fame ascribe to that eminent personage those romantic 
achievements, those feats of purely animal prowess, which 
distinguished his rival Siward. Brave he was, but brave 
as a leader ; those faculties in which he appears to have 
excelled all his contemporaries, were more analogous to 
the requisites of success in civilized times, than those 
which won renown of old. And perhaps England was 
the only country then in Europe which could have given 
to those faculties their fitting career. He possessed essen- 
tially the arts of party ; he knew how to deal with vast 
masses of mankind ; he could carry along with its inter- 
ests the fervid heart of the multitude ; he had in the 
highest degree that gift, useless in most other lands — in 
all lands where popular assemblies do not exist — the gift 
of popular eloquence. Ages elapsed, after the Norman 
conquest, ere eloquence again became a power in Eng- 
land.* 

But like all men renowned for eloquence, he went with 
the popular feeling of his times ; he embodied its passions, 
its prejudices — but also that keen sense of self-interest, 
which is the invariable characteristic of a multitude. He 
was the sense of the commonalty carried to its highest 
degree. Whatever the faults, it may be the crimes, of a 

* When the chronicler praises the gift of speech, he uncon- 
sciously proves the existence of constitutional freedom. 


HAROLD. 


127 


career singularly prosperous and splendid, amidst events 
the darkest and most terrible, — shining with a steady 
light across the thunder-clouds, — he was never accused 
of cruelty or outrage to the mass of the people. Eng- 
lish, emphatically, the English deemed him ; and this not 
the less that in his youth he had sided with Canute, and 
owed his fortunes to that king ; for so intermixed were 
Danes and Saxons in England, that the agreement which 
had given to Canute one half the kingdom, had been 
received with general applause : and the earlier severities 
of that great prince had been so redeemed in his later 
years by wisdom and mildness — so, even in the worst 
period of his reign, relieved by extraordinary personal 
affability, and so lost now in men’s memories by pride in 
his power and fame, — that Canute had left behind him a 
beloved and honored name,* and Godwin was the more 
esteemed as the chosen counsellor of that popular prince 
At his death, Godwin was known to have wished, ano 
even armed, for the restoration of the Saxon line ; and 
only yielded to the determination of the Witan, no doubt 
acted upon by the popular opinion. Of one dark crime 
he was suspected ; and, despite his oath to the contrary, 
and the formal acquittal of the national council, doubt 
of his guilt rested then, as it rests still, upon his name ; 

* Recent Danish historians have in vain endeavored to detract 
from the reputation of Canute as an English monarch. The Danes 
are, doubtless, the best authorities for his character in Denmark. 
But our own English authorities are sufficiently decisive as to the 
personal popularity of Canute in this country, and the affection 
entertained for his laws. 


128 


HAROLD. 


viz. tne perfidious surrender of Alfred, Edward’s mur- 
dered brother. 

But time had passed over the dismal tragedy ; and 
there was an instinctive and prophetic feeling throughout 
the English nation, that with the House of Godwin was 
identified the cause of the English people. Everything 
in this man’s aspect served to plead in his favor. His 
ample brows were calm with benignity and thought ; his 
large, dark-blue eyes were serene and mild, though their 
expression, when examined, was close and inscrutable. 
His mien was singularly noble, but wholly without for- 
mality or affected state ; and though haughtiness and 
arrogance were largely attributed to him, they could be 
found only in his deeds, not manner — plain, familiar, 
kindly to all men, his heart seemed as open to the service 
of his countrymen as his hospitable door to their wants. 

Behind him stood the stateliest group of sons that ever 
filled with pride a father’s eye. Each strikingly distin- 
guished from the other, all remarkable for beauty of 
countenance and strength of frame. 

Sweyn, the eldest,* had the dark hues of his mother, 

* Some of our historians erroneously represent Harold as the 
eldest son. But Florence, the best authority we have, in the silence 
of the Saxon Chronicle , as well as Knyghton, distinctly states Swevn 
to be the eldest; Harold was the second, and Tostig was the third. 
Sweyn’s seniority seems corroborated by the greater importance 
of his earldom. The Norman chroniclers, in their spite to Harold, 
wish to make him junior to Tostig— for the reasons evident at the 
close of this work. And the Norwegian chronicler, Snorro Sturle- 
son, says that Harold was the youngest of all the sons; so little 
was really known, or cared to be accurately known of that great 
house which so nearly founded a new dynasty of English kino- s . 


HAROLD. 


129 


the Dane : a wild and mournful majesty sat upon features 
aquiline and regular, but wasted by grief or passion • 
raven locks, glossy even in neglect, fell half over eyes 
hollow in their sockets, but bright, though with troubled 
fire. Over his shoulder he wore his mighty axe. His 
form, spare, but of immense power, was sheathed in mail, 
and he leant on his great pointed Danish shield. At his 
feet sat his young son Haco, a boy with a countenance 
preternaturally thoughtful for his years, which were yet 
those of childhood. 

Next to him stood the most dreaded and ruthless of 
the sons of Godwin — he, fated to become to the Saxon 
what Julian was to the Goth. With his arms folded on 
his breast stood Tostig; his face was beautiful as a 
Greek’s, in all save the forehead, which was low and 
lowering. Sleek and trim were his bright chesnut locks ; 
and his arms were damascened with silver, for he was 
one who loved the pomp and luxury of war. 

Wolnoth, the mother’s favorite, seemed yet in the first 
flower of youth, but he alone of all the sons had some- 
thing irresolute and effeminate in his aspect and bearing ; 
his form, though tall, had not yet come to its full height 
and strength ; and, as if the weight of mail were unusual 
to him, he leant with both hands upon the wood of his 
long spear. Leofwine, who stood next to Wolnoth, con- 
trasted him notably ; his sunny locks wreathed carelessly 
over a white unclouded brow, and the silken hair on the 
upper lip quivered over arch lips, smiling, even in that 
serious hour. 


11 * 


i 


130 


HAROLD. 


At Godwin’s right hand, but not immediately near 
him, stood the last of the group, Gurth and Harold. 
Gurth had passed his arm over the shoulder of his bro- 
ther, and not watching the nuncius while he spoke, 
watched only the effect his words produced on the face 
of Harold. For Gurth loved Harold as Jonathan loved 
David. And Harold was the only one of the group not 
armed ; and had a veteran skilled in war been asked who 
of that group was born to lead armed men, he would 
have pointed to the man unarmed. 

“ So what says the king?” asked Earl Godwin. 

“ This : he refuses to restore thee and thy sons, or to 
hear thee, till thou hast disbanded thine army, dismissed 
thy ships, and consented to clear thyself and thy house 
before the Witanagemot.” 

A fierce laugh broke from Tostig ; Sweyn’s mournful 
brow grew darker ; Leofwine placed his right hand on 
his ateghar ; Wolnoth rose erect ; Gurth kept his eyes 
on Harold, and Harold’s face was unmoved. 

“ The king received thee in his council of war,” said 
Godwin, thoughtfully, “and doubtless the Normans were 
there. Who were the Englishmen most of mark?” 

“Siward of Northumbria, thy foe.” 

“My sons,” said the earl, turning to his children, and 
breathing loud as if a load were off his heart; “there 
will be no need of axe or armor to-day. Harold alone 
was wise,” and he pointed to the linen tunic of the son 
thus cited. 

“ What mean you, Sir Father ? ” said Tostig im- 
periously. “ Think you to ” 


HAROLD. 


131 


“ Peace, son, peace ; ” said Godwin, without asperity 
but with conscious command. “ Return, brave and dear 
friend,” he said to Yebba, ‘‘find out Siward the earl; 
tell him that I, Godwin, his foe in the old time, place 
honor and life in his hands, and what he counsels that 
vull we do. — Go.” 

The Kentman nodded, and regained his boat. Then 
spoke Harold. 

“ Father, yonder are the forces of Edward ; as yet 
without leaders, since the chiefs must be still in the halls 
of the king. Some fiery Norman amongst them may 
provoke an encounter ; and this city of London is not 
won, as it behoves us to win it, if one drop of English 
blood dye the sword of one Englishman. Wherefore, 
with your leave, I will take boat, and land. And unless 
I have lost in my absence all right lere in the hearts of 
our countrymen, at the first shout from our troops which 
proclaims that Harold, son of Godwin, is on the soil of 
our fathers, half yon array of spears and helms pass a', 
once to our side.” 

“And if not, my vain brother?” said Tostig, gnawing 
his lip with envy. 

“And if not, I will ride alone into the midst of them, 
and ask what Englishmen are there who will aim shaft 
or spear at this breast, never mailed against England 1 ” 

Godwin placed his hand on Harold’s head, and the 
tears came to those close cold eyes. 

“ Thou knowest by nature what I have learned by art. 
Go, and prosper. Be it as thou wilt.” 


132 


HAROLD. 


“ He takes thy post, Sweyn— thou art the elder,” said 
Tostig, to the wild form by his side. 

“ There is guilt on my soul, and woe in my heart,” 
answered Sweyn, moodily. “ Shall Esau lose his birth- 
right, and Cain retain it?” So saying, he withdrew, 
and, reclining against the stern of the vessel, leant his 
face upon the edge of his shield. 

Harold watched him with deep compassion in his eyes, 
passed to his side with a quick step, pressed his hand, 
and whispered, “ Peace to the past, 0 my brother ! ” 

The boy Haco, who had noiselessly followed his father, 
lifted his sombre, serious looks to Harold as he thus 
spoke ; and when Harold turned away, he said to Sweyn, 
timidly, “He, at least, is ever good to thee and to me.” 

‘‘And thou, when I am no more, shalt cling to him as 
thy father, Haco,” answered Sweyn, tenderly smoothing 
back the child’s dark locks. 

The boy shivered ; and, bending his head, murmured 
to himself, “ When thou art no more ! No more ! Has 
the Yala doomed him, too? Father and son, both?” 

Meanwhile, Harold had entered the boat lowered from 
the sides of the aesca to receive him ; and Gurth, looking 
appealingly to his father, and seeing no sign of dissent, 
sprang down after the young earl, and seated himself by 
his side. 

Godwin followed the boat with musing eyes. 

“ Small need,” said he aloud, but to himself, “ to be- 
lieve in soothsayers, or to credit Hilda the saga, when 
sne prophesied, ere we left our shores, that Harold ” 


HAROLD. 


133 


He stopped short, for Tostig’s wrathful exclamation broke 
on his reverie. 

“ Father, father 1 My blood surges in my ears, and 
boils in my heart, when I hear thee name the prophecies 
of Hilda in favor of thy darling. Dissension and strife 
in our house have they wrought already ; and if the feuds 
between Harold and me have sown grey in thy locks, 
thank thyself when, flushed with vain soothsayings for 
thy favored Harold, thou saidst, in the hour of our first 
childish broil, ‘ Strive not with Harold ; for his brothers 
will be his men.’” 

“ Falsify the prediction,” said Godwin calmly; “wise 
men may always make their own future, and seize their 
own fates. Prudence, patience, labor, valor; these are 
the stars that rule the career of mortals.” 

Tostig made no answer ; for the splash of oars was 
near, and two ships, containing the principal chiefs that 
had joined Godwin’s cause, came alongside the Runic 
sesca to hear the result of the message sent to the king. 
Tosting sprang to the vessel’s side, and exclaimed, “ The 
king, girt by his false counsellors, will hear us not, and 
arms must decide between us.” 

“ Hold, hold ! malignant, unhappy boy 1” cried God- 
win, between his grinded teeth, as a shout of indignant, 
yet joyous ferocity, broke from the crowded ships thus 
hailed. “ The curse of all time be on him who draws the 
first native blood in sight of the altars and hearths of 
London ! Hear me, thou with the vulture’s blood-lust, 
and the peacock’s vain joy in the gaudy plume 1 Hear 
I.— 12 


134 


HAROLD. 


me, Tostig, and tremble. If but by one word thou widen 
the breach between me and the king, outlaw thou enterest 
England, outlaw shalt thou depart — for earldom and 
broad lands, choose the bread of the stranger, and the 
weregeld of the wolfl” 

The young Saxon, haughty as he was, quailed at his 
lather’s thrilling voice, bowed his head, and retreated 
sullenly. Godwin sprang on the deck of the nearest 
vessel, and all the passions that Tostig had aroused, he 
exerted his eloquence to appease. 

In the midst of his arguments, there rose from the 
ranks on the strand, the shout of “ Harold ! Harold the 
Earl ! Harold and Holy Crosse ! ” And Godwin, turn- 
ing his eye to the king’s ranks, saw them agitated, swayed, 
and moving ; till suddenly from the very heart of the 
hostile array, came, as by irresistible impulse, the cry — 
“ Harold, our Harold ! All hail, the good Earl ! ” 

While this chanced without, — within the palace, 
Edward had quitted the presence-chamber, and was 
closeted with Stigand, the bishop. This prelate had the 
more influence with Edward, inasmuch as though Saxon, 
he was held to be no enemy to the Normans, and had, 
indeed on a former occasion, been deposed from his 
bishopric on the charge of too great an attachment to 
the Norman Queen-mother Emma.* Never in his whole 
life had Edward been so stubborn as on this occasion. 

* Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a. d. 1043. “Stigand was deposed 
from his bishopric, and all that he possessed was seized into the 
king’s hands, because he was received to his mother's counsel, and 


HAROLD. 


135 


For here, more than his realm was concerned, he was 
threatened in the peace of his household, and the com- 
fort of his tepid friendships. With the recall of his 
powerful father-in-law, he foresaw the necessary reintru- 
sion of his wife upon the charm of his chaste solitude. 
His favorite Normans would be banished, he should bo 
surrounded with faces he abhorred. All the representa- 
tions of Stigand fell upon a stern and unyieldiug spirit, 
when Siward entered the king’s closet. 

“Sir, my king,” said the great son of Beorn, “1 
yielded to your kingly will in the council, that, before we 
listened to Godwin, he should disband his men, and sub- 
mit to the judgment of the Witan. The earl hath sent 
to me to say, that he will put honor and life i» my keep- 
ing, and abide by my counsel. And I have answered as 
became the man who will never snare a foe, or betray a 
trust. ” 

“How hast thou answered?” asked the king. 

“ That he abide by the laws of England, as Dane and 
Saxon agreed to abide in the days of Canute ; that he 
and his sons shall make no claim for land or lordship, 
but submit all to the Witan.” 

“ Good,” said the king ; “ and the Witan will condemn 
him now, as it would have condemned when he shunned 
to meet it ? ” 


she went just as he advised her, as people thought.” The saintly 
Confessor dealt with his bishops as summarily as Henry VIII 
could have done, after his quarrel with the Pope. 


136 


HAROLD 


“And the Witan now,” returned the earl, emphatic- 
ally, “will be free, and fair, and just.” 

“And meanwhile the troops ” 

“ Will wait on either side ; and if reason fail, then the 
sword,” said Siward. 

“ This I will not hear,” exclaimed Edward ; when the 
tramp of many feet thundered along the passage ; the 
door was flung open, and several captains (Norman as 
well as Saxon) of the king’s troops rushed in, wild, rude, 
and tumultuous. 

“ The troops desert ! half their ranks have thrown down 
their arms at the very name of Harold 1 ” exclaimed the 
Earl of Hereford. “ Curses on the knaves 1 ” 

“ And their lithsmen of London,” cried a Saxon thegn, 
“ are all on his side, and marching already through the 
gates.” 

“ Pause yet,” whispered Stigand ; “ and who shall say, 
this hour to-morrow, if Edward or Godwin reign on the 
throne of Alfred?” 

His stern heart moved by the distress of his king, and 
not the less for the unwonted firmness which Edward 
displayed, Siward here approached, knelt, and took the 
king’s hand. 

“ Siward can give no niddering counsel to his king ; to 
save the blood of his subjects is never a king’s disgrace. 
Yield thou to mercy — Godwin to the law!” 

“ Oh for the cowl and cell ! ” exclaimed the prince, 
wringing his hands. “Oh Norman home, why did I 
leave thee ? ” 


HAROLD. 


137 


He took the cross from his breast, contemplated it 
fixedly, prayed silently but with fervor, and his face 
again became tranquil. 

“ Go,” he said, flinging himself on his seat in the ex- 
haustion that follows passion, “ Go, Siward, go Stigand, 
deal with things mundane as ye will.” 

The bishop, satisfied with this reluctant acquiescence, 
seized Siward by the arm and withdrew him from the 
closet. The captains remained a few moments behind, 
the Saxons silently gazing on the king, the Normans 
whispering each other, in great doubt and trouble, and 
darting looks of the bitterest scorn at their feeble bene- 
factor. Then, as with one accord, these last rushed 
along the corridor, gained the hall where their country- 
men yet assembled, and exclaimed, “A toute bride ! Frame 
etrier ! — All is lost but life 1 — God for the first man, — 
knife and cord for the last ! ” 

Then, as the cry of fire, or as the first crash of aD 
earthquake, dissolves all union, and reduces all emotion 
into one thought of self-saving, the whole conclave, 
crowding pell-mell on each other, bustled, jostled, 
clamored to the door — happy he who could find horse — 
palfrey, — even monk’s mule ! This way, that way, fled 
those lordly Normans, those martial abbots, those mitred 
bishops — some singly, some in pairs ; some by tens, and 
some by scores ; but all prudently shunning association 
with those chiefs whom they had most courted the day 
before, and who, they now knew, would be the main 
mark for revenge ; save only two, who yet, from that awe 
12 * 


138 


HAROLD. 


of the spiritual power which characterized the Norman, 
who was already half monk, half soldier, (Crusader and 
Templar before Crusades were yet preached, or the Tem- 
plars yet dreamed of), — even in that hour of selfish panic 
rallied round them the prowest chivalry of their country- 
men, viz., the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of 
Canterbury. Both these dignitaries, armed cap-a-pie, 
and spear in hand, headed the flight ; and good service 
that day, both as guide and champion, did Mallet de 
Graville. He led them in a circuit behind both armies, 
but being intercepted by a new body, coming from the 
pastures of Hertfordshire to the help of Godwin, he was 
compelled to take the bold and desperate resort of enter- 
ing the city gates. These were wide open ; whether to 
admit the Saxon earls, or vomit forth their allies, the 
Londoners. Through these, up the narrow streets, riding 
three a-breast, dashed the slaughtering fugitives ; worthy 
in flight of their national renown, they trampled down 
every obstacle. Bodies of men drew up against them at 
every angle, with the Saxon cry of “Out! — Out!” 
“ Down with the outland men ! ” Through each, spear 
pierced, and sword clove the way. Red with gore was 
the spear of the prelate of London ; broken to the hilt 
was the sword militant in the terrible hand of the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury. So on they rode, so on they 
slaughtered — gained the Eastern Gate, and passed with 
but tw^) of their number lost. 

The fields once gained, for better precaution they se- 
oarated. Some few, not quite ignorant of the Saxon 


HAROLD. 


-39 


tongue, doffed their mail, and crept through forest and 
fell towards the sea-shore ; others retained steed and 
arms, but shunned equally the high roads. The two pre- 
lates were among the last ; they gained, in safety, Ness, 
in Essex, threw themselves into an open, crazy, fishing- 
boat, committed themselves to the waves, and, half 
drowned and half famished, drifted over the Channel to 
the French shores. Of the rest of the courtly foreigners, 
some took refuge in the forts yet held by their country- 
men ; some lay concealed in creeks and caves till they 
could find or steal boats for their passage. And thus, in 
the year of our Lord 1052, occurred the notable disper- 
sion and ignominious flight of the counts and vavasours 
of great William the Duke ! 


CHAPTER III. 

The Witana-gemot was assembled in the Great Hall 
of Westminster in all its imperial pomp. 

It was on his throne that the King sate now — and it 
was the sword that was in his right hand. Some seated 
below, and some standing beside, the throne, were the 
officers of the Basileus* of Britain. There, were to be 

* The title of Basileus was retained by our kings so late as the 
time of John, who styled himself “ Totius Insulae Britannicae Ba- 
uileus.” — Agard : On the Antiquity of Shires in England , ap Hearne , 
Cur. Disc. 


140 


HAROLD. 


seen camararius and pincerna, chamberlain and cup- 
bearer ; disc thegn and hors thegn : * the thegn or the 
dishes, and the thegn of the stud ; with many more, whose 
state offices may not impossibly have been borrowed from 
the ceremonial pomp of the Byzantine court ; for Edgar, 
King of England, had in the old time styled himself the 
Heir of Constantine. Next to these sat the clerks of the 
chapel, with the King’s confessor at their head. Officers 
were they of higher note than their name bespeaks, and 
wielders, in the trust of the Great Seal, of a power un- 
known of old, and now obnoxious to the Saxon. For 
tedious is the suit which lingers for the king’s writ and 
the king’s seal ; and from those clerks shall arise hereafter 
a thing of torture and of might, which shall grind, out 
the hearts of men, and be called Chancery ! ■}■ 

Below the scribes, a space was left on the floor, and 
farther down sat the chiefs of the Witan. Of these, first 
in order, both from their spiritual rank and their vast 
temporal possessions, sat the Lords of the Church ; the 
chairs of the prelates of London and Canterbury were 
void. But still goodly was the array of Saxon mitres, 
with the harsh, hungry, but intelligent face of Stigand, — 

* Sharon Turner. 

t See the Introduction to Palqrave’s History of the Anglo-Saxons , 
from which this description of the Witan is borrowed so largely, 
that I am left without other apology for the plagiarism, than the 
frank confession, that if I could have found in others, or conceived 
from my own resources, a description half as graphic and half as 
accurate, I would only have plagiarized to half the extent I have 
done. 


HAROLD. 


141 


Stigand the stout and the covetous ; and the benign but 
firm features of Alfred, true priest and true patriot, dis- 
tinguished amidst all. Around each prelate, as stars 
round a sun, were his own special priestly retainers, se- 
lected from his diocese. Farther still down the hall are 
the great civil lords and vice-king vassals of the “ Lord- 
Parainount.” Vacant the chair of the King of the Scots, 
for Siward hath not yet had his wish ; Macbeth is in his 
fastnesses, or listening to the weird sisters in the wold ; 
and Malcolm is a fugitive in the halls of the Northum- 
brian earl. Vacant the chair of the hero Gryfifyth, son 
of Llewelyn, the dread of the marches, Prince of Gwyned, 
whose arms had subjugated all Cymry. But there, are 
the lesser sub-kings of Wales, true to the immemorial 
schisms amongst themselves, which destroyed the realm 
of Ambrosius, and rendered vain the arm of Arthur. 
With their torques of gold, and wild eyes, and hair cut 
round ears and brow,* they stare on the scene. 

On the same bench with these sub-kings, distinguished 
from them by height of stature, and calm collectedness 
of mien, no less than by their caps of maintenance and 
furred robes, are those props of strong thrones and 
terrors of weak — the earls to whom shires and counties 
fall, as hyde and carricate to the lesser thegns. But three 
of these were then present, and all three the foes of 
Godwin — Siward, Earl of Northumbria; Leofric, of 
Mercia (that Leofric whose wife Godiva yet lives in 


* Girald. Gambrensis. 


142 


HAROLD. 


ballad and song) ; and Rolf, Earl of Hereford and Wor- 
cestershire, who, strong in his claim of “ king’s blood,” 
left not the court with his Norman friends. And on the 
same benches, though a little apart, are the lesser earls, 
and that higher order of thegns, called king’s thegns. 

Not far from these sat the chosen citizens from the 
free burgh of London, already of great weight in the 
senate,* — sufficing often to turn its counsels ; all friends 
were they of the English Earl and his house. In the 
same division of the hall were found the bulk and true 
popular part of the meeting — popular indeed — as repre- 
senting not the people, but the things the people most 
prized — valor and wealth ; the thegn land-owners, called 
in the old deeds the “ Ministers : ” they sate with swords 
by their side, all of varying birth, fortune, and connection, 
whether with king, earl, or ceorl. For in the different 
districts of the old Heptarchy, the qualification varied ; 
high in East Anglia, low in Wessex; so that what was 
wealth in the one shire was poverty in the other. There 
sate, half a yeoman, the Saxon thegn of Berkshire or 
Dorset, proud of his five hydes of land ; there, half an 
ealderman, the Danish thegn of Norfolk or Ely, discon- 
tented with his forty ; some were there in right of smaller 
offices under the crown ; some traders, and sons of 
traders, for having crossed the high seas three times at 


* Palgrave omits, I presume accidentally, these members of the 
Witan, but it is clear from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that the 
London “lithsmen ” were represented in the great National Witans, 
and helped to decide the election even of kings. 


HAROLD 


143 


their own risk ; some could boast the blood of Offa and 
Egbert ; and some traced but three generations back to 
neat-herd and ploughman ; and some were Saxons, and 
some were Danes ; and some from the western shires 
were by origin Britons, though little cognizant of their 
race. Farther down still, at the extreme end of the hall, 
crowding by the open doors, filling up the space without, 
were the ceorls themselves, a vast and not powerless 
body : in these high courts (distinct from the shire 
gemots, or local senates) — never called upon to vote or 
to speak or to act, or even to sign names to the doom, 
but only to shout “Yea, yea,’ r when the proceres pro- 
nounced their sentence. Yet not powerless were they, 
but rather to the Witan, what public opinion is to the 
Witan’s successor, our modern parliament : they were 
opinion 1 And according to their numbers and their 
sentiments, easily known and boldly murmured, often and 
often must that august court of basileus and prelate, 
vassal-king and mighty earl, have shaped the council and 
adjudged the doom. 

And the forms of the meeting had been duly said and 
done ; and the king had spoken words, no doubt, wary 
and peaceful, gracious and exhortatory ; but those words 
—for his voice that day was weak — travelled not bejond 
the small circle of his clerks and his officers ; and a 
murmur buzzed through the hall, when Earl Godwin 
stood on the floor with his six sons at his back ; and 
you might have heard the hum of the gnat that vexed 
the smooth cheek of Earl Rolf or the click of the spider 


144 


HAROLD. 


from the web on the vaulted roof, the moment before 
Earl Godwin spoke. 

“If,” said he, with the modest look and downcast eye 
of practised eloquence, “if I rejoice once more to breathe 
the air of England, in whose service, often perhaps with 
faulty deeds, but at all times with honest thoughts, I 
have, both in war and council, devoted so much of my 
life that little now remains — but (should you, my king, 
and you, prelates, proceres, and ministers so vouchsafe) 
to look round and select that spot of my native soil 
which shall receive my bones; — if I rejoice to stand 
once more in that assembly which has often listened to 
my voice when our common country was in peril, who 
here will blame that joy ? Who among my foes, if foes 
now I have, will not respect the old man’s gladness ? 
Who amongst you, earls and thegns, would not grieve, 
if his duty bade him say to the grey-haired exile, ‘In 
this English air you shall not breathe- your last sigh — 
on this English soil you shall not find a grave ! ’ Who 
amongst you would not grieve to say it ? ” (Suddenly 
he drew up his head and faced his audience.) “ Who 
amongst you hath the courage and the heart to say it ? 
Yes, I rejoice that I am at last in an assembly fit to 
judge my cause, and pronounce my innocence. For 
what offence was 1 outlawed ? For what offence were I, 
and the six sons I have given to my land, to bear the 
wolf’s penalty, and be chased and slain as the wild beasts ? 
Hear me, and answer ! 

“ Eustace, Count of Boulogne, returning to his domains 


HAROLD. 


145 


from a visit to our lord the King, entered the town of 
Dover in mail and on his war-steed ; his train did the 
same. Unknowing our laws and customs (for I desire 
to press light upon all old grievances, and will impute 
ill designs to none), these foreigners invade by force the 
private dwellings of citizens, and there select their quar- 
ters. Ye all know that this was the strongest violation 
of Saxon right ; ye know that the meanest ceorl hath 
the proverb on his lip, ‘Every man’s house is his castle.’ 
One of the townsmen acting on this belief — which I 
have yet to learn was a false one — expelled from his 
threshold a retainer of the French Earl’s. The stranger 
drew his sword and wounded him; blows followed — 
the stranger fell by the arm he had provoked. The news 
arrives to Earl Eustace ; he and his kinsmen spur to 
the spot ; they murder the Englishman on his hearth- 
stone. ’’ 

Here a groan, half-stifled and wrathful, broke from 
the ceorls at the end of the hall. Godwin held up his 
hand in rebuke of the interruption, and resumed : 

“This deed done, the outlanders rode through the 
streets with their drawn swords; they butchered those 
who came in their way; they trampled even children 
under their horses’ feet. The burghers armed. I thank 
the Divine Father, who gave me for my countrymen 
those gallant burghers ! They fought, as we English 
know bow to fight ; they slew 6ome nineteen or more of 
these mailed intruders ; they chased them from the town. 
Earl Eustace fled fast. Earl Eustace we know is a wise 


J — 13 


K 


146 


HAROLD. 


man : small rest took he, little bread broke he, till he 
pulled rein at the gate of Gloucester, where my lord the 
king then held court. He made his complaint. My 
lord the king, naturally hearing but one side, thought 
the burghers in the wrong ; and, scandalized that such 
high persons of his own kith should be so aggrieved, he 
sent for me, in whose government the burgh of Dover is, 
and bade me chastise, by military execution, those who 
had attacked the foreign Count. I appeal to the great 
Earls whom I see before me — to you, illustrious Leofric; 
to you, renowned Siward — what value would ye set on 
your earldoms, if ye had not the heart and the power to 
see right done to the dwellers therein ? 

“ What was the course I proposed ? Instead of mar- 
tial execution, which would involve the whole burgh in 
one sentence, I submitted that the reeve and gerefas of 
the burgh should be cited to appear before the king, and 
account for the broil. My lord, though ever most cle- 
ment and loving to his good people, either unhappily 
moved against me, or over-swayed by the foreigners, was 
counselled to reject this mode of doing justice, which our 
laws, as settled under Edgar and Canute, enjoin. And 
because I would not, — and I say in the presence of all, 
because I, Godwin son of Wolnoth, durst not, if I would, 
have entered the free burgh of Dover with mail on my 
back and the dooms-man at my right hand, these out- 
landers induced my lord the king to summon me to at- 
tend in person (as for a sin of my own) the council of 
the Witan, convened at Gloucester, then filled with the 


HAROLD. 


14T 


/- 


foreigners, not, as I humbly opined, to do justice to me 
and my folk of Dover, but to secure to this Count of 
Boulogne a triumph over English liberties, and sanction 
his scorn for the value of English lives. 

“ I hesitated, and was menaced with outlawry ; I armed 
in self-defence, and in defence of the laws of England ; I 
armed that men might not be murdered on their hearth- 
stones, nor children trampled under the hoofs of a 
stranger’s war-steed. My lord the king gathered his 
troops round ‘the cross and the martlets.’ Yon noble 
earls, Siward and Leofric, came to that standard, as 
(knowing not then my cause) was their duty to the 
Basileus of Britain. But when they knew my cause, and 
saw with me the dwellers of the land, against me the out- 
land aliens, they righteously interposed. An armistice 
was concluded ; I agreed to refer all matters to a Witan 
held where it is held this day. My troops were disbanded : 
but the foreigners induced my lord not only to retain his 
own, but to issue his Herrbann for the gathering of hosts 
far and near, even allies beyond the seas. When I looked 
to London for the peaceful Witan, what saw I ? The 
largest armament that had been collected in this reign — 
that armament headed by Norman knights. Was this 
the meeting where justice could be done mine and me ? 
Nevertheless, what was my offer ? That I and my six 
sons would attend, provided the usual sureties, agreeable 
to our laws, from which only thieves * are excluded, were 

* By Athelstan’s law, every man was to have peace going to and 
from the Witan, unless he was a thief. — W ilkins, p. 1S7. 


148 


HAROLP 


given that we should come and go life-free and safe. 
Twice this offer was made, twice refused ; and so I and 
my sons were banished. We went ; — we have returned !” 

“And in arms,” murmured Earl Rolf, son-in-law to 
that Count Eustace of Boulogne whose violence had been 
temperately and truly narrated.* 

“And in arms,” repeated Godwin: “true; in arms 
against the foreigners who had thus poisoned the ear of 
our gracious king; in arms, Earl Rolf; and at the first 
clash of those arras Franks and foreigners have fled. We 
have no need of arms now. We are amongst our coun- 
trymen, and no Frenchman interposes between us and the 
ever gentle, ever generous nature of our born king. 

“ Peers and proceres, chiefs of this Witan, perhaps the 
/argest ever yet assembled in man’s memory, it is for you 
to decide whether I and mine, or the foreign fugitives, 
caused the dissension in these realms ; whether our banish- 
ment was just or not ; whether in our return we have 
abused the power we possessed. Ministers, on those 
swords by your sides there is not one drop of blood ! At 
all events, in submitting to you our fate, we submit to 
our own laws and our own race. I am here to clear my- 
self. on my oath, of deed and thought of treason. There 
are amongst my peers as king’s tbegns, those who will 
attest the same on my behalf, and prove the facts I have 
stated, if they are not sufficiently notorious. As for my 
sons, no crime can be alleged against them, unless it be 

* Goda, Edward’s sister, married first Rolf’s father, Count of 
Mantes; secondly. — Count of Boulogne. 


HAROLD. 


U9 

a crime to have in their veins that blood which flows in 
mine — blood which they have learned from me to shed in 
defence of that beloved land to which they now ask to 
be recalled.” 

The Earl ceased and receded behind his children, hav- 
ing artfully, by his very abstinence from the more heated 
eloquence imputed to him often as a fault and a wile, pro- 
duced a powerful effect upon an audience already pre- 
pared for his acquittal. 

But now as from the sons, Sweyn the eldest stepped 
forth, with a wandering eye and uncertain foot, there was 
a movement like a shudder amongst the large majority 
of the audience, and a murmur of hate or of horror. 

The young earl marked the sensation his presence pro- 
duced, and stopped short. His breath came thick ; he 
raised his right hand, but spoke not. His voice died on 
his lips ; his eyes roved wildly round with a haggard stare 
more imploring than defying. Then rose, in his episcopal 
stole, Aired the bishop, and his clear sweet voice trem- 
bled as he spoke. 

“ Comes Sweyn, son of Godwin, here, to prove his in- 
nocence of treason against the king ? — if so, let him hold 
his peace ; for if the Witan acquit Godwin son of Wol- 
noth of that charge, the acquittal includes his House. 
But in the name of the holy Church here represented by 
its fathers, will Sweyn say, and fasten his word by oath, 
that he is guiltless of treason to the King of Kings — 
guiltless of sacrilege that my lips shrink to name? Alas, 
that the duty falls on me, — for I loved thee once, and 
13 * 


nAROLD. 


15b 

lore thy iindred now. But I am God’s servant before 
all things” — the prelate paused, and gathering up new 
energy, added in unfaltering accents, “I charge thee 
here, Sweyn the outlaw, that, moved by the fiend, thou 
didst bear off from God’s house and violate a daughter 
of the Church — Algive, abbess of Leominster!” 

“And I, ” cried Siward, rising to the full height of his 
stature, “ I, in the presence of these proceres, whose 
proudest title is milites or warriors — I charge Sweyn, 
son of Godwin, that, not in open field and hand to hand, 
but by felony and guile, he wrought the foul and abhor- 
rent murder of his cousin, Beorn the earl ! ” 

At these two charges from men so eminent, the effect 
upon the audience was startling. While those not influ- 
enced by Godwin raised their eyes, sparkling with wrath 
and scorn, upon the wasted, yet still noble face of the 
eldest-born ; even those most zealous on behalf of that 
popular House evinced no sympathy for its heir. Some 
looked down abashed and mournful — some regarded the 
accused with a cold unpitying gaze. Only perhaps among 
the ceorls, at the end of the hall, might be seen some 
compassion on anxious faces ; for before those deeds of 
crime had been bruited abroad, none among the sons of 
Godwin more blithe of mien and bold of hand, more 
honored and beloved, than Sweyn the outlaw. But the 
hush that succeeded the charges was appalling in its 
depth. Godwin himself shaded his face with his mantle, 
and only those close by could see that his breast heaved 
and his limbs trembled. The brothers had shrunk from 


HAROLD. 


151 


the side of the accused, outlawed even amongst his kin — 
all save Harold, who, strong in his blameless name ana 
beloved repute, advanced three strides amidst the silence, 
and, standing by his brother’s side, lifted his command- 
ing brow above the seated judges, but he did not speak. 

Then said Sweyn the earl, strengthened by such soli- 
tary companionship in that hostile assemblage, — “ I might 
answer that for these charges in the past, for deeds alleged 
as done eight long years ago, I have the king’s grace, 
and the inlaw’s right ; and that in the Witans over which 
I as earl presided, no man was twice judged for the same 
offence. That I hold to be the law, in the great councils 
as the small.” 

“ It is ! it is ! ” exclaimed Godwin ; his paternal feel- 
ings conquering his prudence and his decorous dignity. 
“ Hold to it, my son ! ” 

“I hold to it not,” resumed the young earl, casting a 
haughty glance over the somewhat blank and disappointed 
faces of his foes, “ for my law is here ” — and he smote 
his heart — “ and that condemns me not once alone, but 
evermore ! Aired, O holy father, at whose knees I once 
confessed my every sin, — I blame thee not that thou first, 
in the Witan, lifted thy voice against me, though thou 
knowest that I loved Algive from youth upward ; she, 
with her heart yet mine, was given in the last year of 
Hardicanute, when might was right, to the Church. I 
met her again, flushed with my victories over the Walloon 
kings, with power in my hand and passion in my veins. 
Deadly was my sin ! — But what asked I ? that vows com* 


152 HAROLD. 

pelled should be annulled ; that the iove of my youth 
might yet be the wife of my manhood. Pardon, that I 
knew not then how eternal are the bonds ye of the Church 
have woven round those of whom, if ye fail of saints, ye 
may at least make martyrs ! ” 

He paused, and his lip curled, and his eye shot wild- 
fire ; for in that moment his mother’s blood was high 
within him, and he looked and thought, perhaps, as some 
heathen Dane, but the flash of the former man was mo- 
mentary, and humbly smiting his breast, he murmured, 
“Avaunt, Satan ! — yea, deadly was my sin 1 And the 
sin was mine alone ; Algive, if stained, was blameless ; 
she escaped — and — and died! 

“ The king was wroth ; and first to strive against my 
pardon was Harold my brother, who now alone in my 
penitence stands by my side : he strove manfully and 
openly; I blamed him not: but Beorn, my cousin, de- 
sired my earldom, and he strove against me, wilily and in 
secret, — to my face kind, behind my back despiteful. I 
detected his falsehood, and meant to detain, but not to 
slay him. He lay bound in my ship ; he reviled and he 
taunted me in the hour of my gloom ; and when the blood 
of the sea-kings flowed in fire through my veins. And I 
lifted my axe in ire ; and my men lifted theirs, and so, — 
and so! — Again I say — Deadly was my sin! 

“Think not that I seek now to make less my guilt, as 
I sought when I deemed that life was yet long, and power 
was yet sweet. Since then I have known worldly evil, 
and worldly good, — the storm and the shine of life ; I 


HAROLD. 


153 


have swept the seas, a sea-king ; I have battled with the 
Dane in his native land ; I have almost grasped in my 
right Land, as I grasped in my dreams, the crown of my 
kinsman, Canute ; — again, I have been a fugitive and an 
exile ; — again, I have been inlawed, and earl of all the 
lands from Isis to the Wye.* And whether in state )r 
in penury, — whether in war or in peace, I have seen t je 
pale face of the nun betrayed, and the gory wounds of the 
murdered man. Wherefore I come not here to plead for 
a pardon, which would console me not, but formally to 
dissever my kinsmen’s cause from mine, which alone sul- 
lies and degrades it ; — I come here to say, that, coveting 
not your acquittal, fearing not your judgment, I pro- 
nounce mine own doom. Cap of noble, and axe of war- 
rior, I lay aside for ever ; barefooted, and alone, I go 
hence to the Holy Sepulchre ; there to assoil my soul, 
and implore that grace which cannot come from man I 
Harold, step forth in the place of Sweyn the first-born 1 
And ye prelates and peers, milites and ministers, proceed 
to adjudge the living ! To you, and to England, he who 
now quits you is the dead!” 

He gathered his robe of state over his breast as a 
monk his gown, and looking neither to right nor to left, 
passed slowly down the hall, through the crowd, which 
made way for him in awe and silence ; and it seemed to 
the assembly as if a cloud had gone from the face of 
day. 

* More correctly of Oxford, Somerset, Berkshire, Gloucester, and 
Hereford. 

13 * 


154 


HAROLD. 


And Godwin still stood with his face covered by his 
robe. 

And Harold anxiously watched the faces of the assem- 
bly, and saw no relenting ! 

And Gurth crept to Harold’s side. 

And the gay Leofwine looked sad. 

And the young Wolnoth turned pale and trembled. 

And the fierce Tostig played with his golden chain. 

And one low sob was heard, and it came from the 
breast of Aired, the meek accuser, — God’s firm but gentle 
priest. 


CHAPTER IY. 

This memorable trial ended, as the reader will have 
foreseen, in the formal renewal of Sweyn’s outlawry, and 
the formal restitution of the Earl Godwin and his other 
sons to their lands and honors, with declarations imputing 
all the blame of the late dissensions to the foreign favor- 
ites, and sentence of banishment against them, except 
only, by way of a bitter mockery, some varlets of low 
degree, such as Humphrey Cocks-foot, and Richard, Son 
of Scrob.* 

* Yet how little safe it is for the great to despise the low-born ! 
This very Richard, son of Scrob, more euphoniously styled by the 
Normans Richard Fitz Scrob, settled in Herefordshire (he was 
probably among the retainers of Earl Rolf), and on William’s land- 
ing, became the chief and most active supporter of the invader in 


HAROLD. 


155 


The return to power of this able and vigorous family 
was attended with an instantaneous effect upon the long- 
relaxed strings of the imperial government. Macbeth 
heard, and trembled in his moors ; Gryffyth of Wales lit 
the fire-beacon on moel and craig. Earl Rolf was 
banished, but merely as a nominal concession to public 
opinion : his kinship to Edward sufficed to restore him 
soon, not only to England, but to the lordship of the 
Marches, and thither was he sent, with adequate force, 
against the Welch, who had half-repossessed themselves 
of the borders they harried. Saxon prelates and abbots 
replaced the Norman fugitives ; and all were contented 
with the revolution, save the King ; for the King lost his 
Norman friends, and regained his English wife. 

In couformity with the usages of the time, hostages of 
the loyalty and faith of Godwin were required and con- 
ceded. They were selected from his own family ; and the 
choice fell on Wolnoth, his son, and Haco, the son of 
Sweyn. As, when nearly all England may be said to 
have repassed to the hands of Godwin, it would have 
been an idle precaution to consign these hostages to the 
keeping of Edward, it was settled, after some discussion, 
that they should be placed in the court of the Norman 
duke, until such time as the king, satisfied with the good 
faith of the family, should authorize their recall : — Fatal 
hostage, fatal ward and host 1 

those districts. The sentence of banishment seems to have been 
mainly confined to the foreigners about the court ; for it is clear 
that many Norman land-owners and priests were still left scattered 
throughout the country. 


15b 


HAROLD. 


It was some days after this national crisis, and order 
and peace were again established in city and land, forest 
and shire, when, at the setting of the sun, Hilda stood 
alone by the altar-stone of Thor. 

The orb was sinking red and lurid, amidst long cloud- 
wracks of vermeil and purple, and not one human form 
was seen in the landscape, save that tall and majestic 
figure by the Runic shrine and the Druid cromrael. She 
was leaning both hands on her wand, or seid-staff, as it 
was called in the language of Scandinavian superstition, 
and bending slightly forward asm the attitude of listen- 
ing or expectation. Long before any form appeared on 
the road below, she seemed to be aware of coming foot- 
steps, and probably her habits of life had sharpened her 
senses ; for she smiled, muttered to herself, “ Ere it sets ! ” 
and changing her posture, leant her arm on the altar, and 
rested her face upon her hand. 

At length, two figures came up the road ; they neared 
the hill ; they saw her, and slowly ascended the knoll. 
The one was dressed in the serge of a pilgrim, and his 
cowl thrown back, showed the face where human beauty 
and human power lay ravaged and ruined by human 
passions. He upon whom the pilgrim lightly leaned wa? 
attired simply, without the brooch or bracelet common 
to thegns of high degree, yet his port was that of majesty, 
and his brow that of mild command. A greater contrast 
could not be conceived than that between these two men, 
yet united by a family likeness. For the countenance 
of the last described was. though sorrowful at that 
moment, and indeed habitually not without a certain 


HAROLD. 


151 


melancholy, wonderfully imposing from its calm and 
sweetness. There, no devouring passions had left the 
cloud or ploughed the line; but all the smooth loveliness 
of youth took dignity from the conscious resolve of man. 
The long hair, of a fair brown, with a slight tinge of gold, 
as the last sun-beams shot through its luxuriance, was 
parted from the temples, and fell in large waves half-way 
to the shoulder. The eye-brows, darker in hue, arched 
and finely traced ; the straight features not less manly 
than the Norman, but less strongly marked ; the cheek, 
hardy with exercise and exposure, yet still retaining some- 
what of youthful bloom under the pale bronze of its sun- 
burnt surface : the form tall, not gigantic, and vigorous 
rather from perfect proportion and athletic habits than 
from breadth and bulk — were all singularly characteristic 
of the Saxon beauty in its highest and purest type. But 
what chiefly distinguished this personage, was that 
peculiar dignity, so simple, so sedate, which no pomp 
seems to dazzle, no danger to disturb ; and which per- 
haps arises from a strong sense of self-dependence, and 
is connected with self-respect — a dignity common to the 
Mian and the Arab ; and rare, except in that state of 
society in which each man is a power in himself. The 
Latin tragic poet touches close upon that sentiment in 

the fine lines — 

“Rex est qui metuit nihil; 

Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat.”* 

* Seneca, Thy est. Act ii. — “ He is a king who fears nothing: 
that kingdom every man gives to himself.” 

L — 14 


158 


HAROLD. 


So stood the brothers, Sweyn the outlaw and Harold 
the Earl before the reputed prophetess. She looked on 
both with a steady eye, which gradually softened almost 
into tenderness, as it finally rested upon the pilgrim. 

“And is it thus,” she said at last, “that I see the first- 
born of Godwin the fortunate, for whom so often I have 
tasked the thunder, and watched the setting sun ? for 
whom my runes have been graven on the bark of the elm, 
and the Scin-laeca * been called in pale splendor from the 
graves of the dead ? ” 

“Hilda,” said Sweyn, “not now will I accuse thee of 
the seeds thou hast sown : the harvest is gathered and 
the sickle is broken. Abjure thy dark Galdra,f and turn 
as I to the sole light in the future, which shines from the 
tomb of the Son Divine.” 

The Prophetess bowed her head and replied: — 

“ Belief cometh as the wind. Can the tree say to the 
wind, ‘Rest thou on my boughs?’ or Man to Belief, 

‘ Fold thy wings on my heart 1 ’ Go where thy soul can 
find comfort, for thy life hath passed from its uses on 
earth. And when I would read thy fate, the runes are 
blanks, and the wave sleeps unstirred on the fountain. 
Go where the Fylgia,| whom Alfader gives to each at 
his birth, leads thee. Thou didst desire love that seemed 
shut from thee, and I predicted that thy love should 

* Scin-laeca, literally a shining corpse; a species of apparition 
invoked by the witch or wizard. — See Sharon Turner cn the Super - 
stitions of the Anglo-Saxons, b. ii. c. 14. 

t Oaldra , magic. J Fylgia, tutelary divinity 


HAROLD. 


159 


awake from the charnel in which the creed that succeeds 
to the faith of our sires inters life in its bloom. And 
thou didst covet the fame of the Jarl and the Viking, 
and I blessed thine axe to thy hand, and wove the sail 
for thy masts. So long as man knows desire , can Hilda 
have power over his doom. But when the heart lies in 
ashes, I raise but a corpse that, at the hush of the charm, 
falls again into its grave. Yet, come to me nearer, 0 
Sweyn, whose cradle I rocked to the chant of my rhyme.” 

The outlaw turned aside his face, and obeyed. 

She sighed as she took his passive hand in her own, 
and examined the lines on the palm. Then, as if by an 
involuntary impulse of fondness and pity, she put aside 
his cowl and kissed his brow. 

“Thy skein is spun, and happier than the many who 
scorn, and the few who lament thee, thou shalt win where 
they lose. The steel shall not smite thee, the storm shall 
forbear thee, the goal that thou yearnest for thy steps 
shall attain. Night hallows the ruin, — and peace to the 
shattered wrecks of the brave 1 ” 

The outlaw heard as if unmoved. But when he turned 
to Harold, who covered his face with his hand, but could 
not restrain the tears that flowed through the clasped 
fingers, a moisture came into his own wild, bright eyes, 
and he said, “Now, my brother, farewell, for no farther 
step shalt thou wend with me.” 

Harold started, opened his arms, and the outlaw fell 
upon his breast. 

No sound was heard save a single sob ; and so close 


160 


HAROLD. 


was breast to breast, you could not say from whose heart 
it came. Then the outlaw wrenched himself from the 
embrace, and murmured, “And Haco — my son — mother- 
less, fatherless — hostage in the land of the stranger I 
Thou wilt remember — thou wilt shield him ; thou be to 
Iiim mother, father in the days to come ! So may the 
i amts bless thee 1 ” With these words he sprang down 
the hillock. 

Harold bounded after him ; but Sweyn, halting, said, 
mournfully, “ Is this thy promise ? Am I so lost that 
faith should be broken even with thy father’s son ? ” 

At that touching rebuke, Harold paused, and the out- 
law passed his way alone. As the last glimpse of his 
figure vanished at the turn of the road, whence, on the 
second of May, the Norman Duke and the Saxon King 
had emerged side by side, the short twilight closed 
abruptly, and up from the far forest-land rose the moon. 

Harold stood rooted to the spot, and still gazing on 
the space, when the Vala laid her hand on his arm. 

“ Behold, as the moon rises on the troubled gloaming, 
so rises the fate of Harold, as yon brief, human shadow, 
halting between light and darkness, passes away to night. 
Thou art now the first-born of a House that unites the 
hopes of the Saxon with the fortunes of the Dane.” 

“ Thinkest thou,” said Harold, with a stern composure, 
“that I can have joy and triumph in a brother’s exile 
and woe ? ” 

“Not now, and not yet, will the voice of thy true 
nature be heard ; but the warmth of the sun brings the 


HAROLD. 


161 


thunder, and the glory of fortune wakes the storm of the 
soul.” 

“ Kinswoman,” said Harold, with a slight curl of his 
lip, “ by me at least have thy prophecies ever passed as 
the sough of the air ; neither in horror nor with faith do 
I think of thy incantations and charms ; and I smile 
alike at the exorcism of the shaveling and the spells of 
the Saga. I have asked thee not to bless mine axe, nor 
weave my sail. No runic rhyme is on the sword -blade 
of Harold. I leave my fortunes to the chance of mine 
own cool brain and strong arm. Yala, between thee and 
me there is no bond.” 

The Prophetess smiled loftily. 

“And what thinkest thou, O self-dependent 1 what 
thinkest thou is the fate which thy brain, and thine arm 
shall win ? ” 

“ The fate they have won already. I see no Beyond. 
The fate of a man sworn to guard his country, love jus- 
tice, and do right.” 

The moon shone full on the heroic face of the young 
Earl as he spoke ; and on its surface there seemed nought 
to belie the noble words. Yet, the Prophetess, gazing 
earnestly on that fair countenance, said, in a whisper, 
that, despite a reason singularly sceptical for the age in 
which it had been cultured, thrilled to the Saxon’s heart, 
“Under that calm eye sleeps the soul of thy sire ; and 
beneath that brow, so haught and so pure, works the 
genius that crowned the kings of the north in the lineage 
of thy mother the Dane.” 

14 * L 


HAROLD. 


“ Peace ! ” said Harold, almost fiercely ; then, as if 
ashamed of the weakness of his momentary irritation, he 
added, with a faint smile, “ Let us not talk of these mat- 
ters while my heart is still sad and away from the thoughts 
of the world, with my brother the lonely outlaw. Night 
is on us, and the ways are yet unsafe ; for the king’s 
troops, disbanded in haste, were made up of many who 
turn to robbers in peace. Alone, aud unarmed, save my 
ateghar, I would crave a night’s rest under thy roof ; 
and,” — he hesitated, and a slight blush came over his 
cheek — “and I would fain see if your grandchild is as 
fair as when I last looked on her blue eyes,' that then 
wept for Harold ere he went into exile.” 

“ Her tears are not at her command, nor her smiles,” 
said the Yala, solemnly; “her tears flow from the fount 
of thy sorrows, and her smiles are the beams from thy 
joys. For know, 0 Harold ! that Edith is thine earthly 
Fylgia ; thy fate and her fate are as one. And, vainly 
as man would escape from his shadow, would soul wrench 
itself from the soul that Skulda hath linked to his doom.” 

Harold made no reply ; but his step, habitually slow, 
grew more quick and light, and this time his reason found 
10 fault with the oracles of the Yala. 


HAROLD. 


163 


CHAPTER Y. 

As Hilda entered the hall, the various idlers accustomed 
to feed at her cost were about retiring, some to their homes 
in the vicinity, some, appertaining to the household, to 
the dormitories in the old Roman villa. 

It was not the habit of the Saxon noble, as it was of 
the Norman, to put hospitality to profit, by regarding 
his guests in the light of armed retainers. Liberal as the 
Briton, the cheer of the board and the shelter of the roof 
were afforded with a hand equally unselfish and indiscri- 
minate ; and the doors of the more wealthy and munifi- 
cent might be almost literally said to stand open from 
morn to eve. 

As Harold followed the Yala across the vast atrium, 
his face was recognized, and a shout of enthusiastic wel- 
come greeted the popular earl. The only voices that did 
not swell that cry, were those of three monks from a 
neighboring convent, who chose to wink at the supposed 
practices of the Morthwyrtha,* from the affection they 
bore to her ale and mead, and the gratitude they felt for 
her ample gifts to their convent. 

“ One of the wicked House, brother,” whispered the 
monk 


* Morthwyrtha , worshipper of the dead. 


164 


HAROLD. 


“ Yea ; mockers and scorners are Godwin and his lewd 
sons,” answered the monk. 

And all three sighed and scowled, as the door closed 
on the hostess and her stately guest. 

Twc tall and not ungraceful lamps lighted the same 
•chamber in which Hilda was first presented to the reader. 
The handmaids were sti'il at their spindles, and the white 
web nimbly shot as the mistress entered. She paused, 
and her brow knit;, as she eyed the work. 

“But three parts done?” she said; “weave fast, and 
weave strong.” 

Harold, not heeding the maids or their task, gazed 
inquiringly round, and from a nook near the window, 
Edith sprang forward with a joyous cry, and a face all 
glowing with delight — sprang forward, as if to the arms 
of a brother ; but, within a step or so of that noble guest, 
she stopped short, and her eyes fell to the ground. 

Harold held his breath in admiring silence. The child 
he had loved from her cradle stood before him as a woman. 
Even since we last saw her, in the interval between the 
spring and the autumn, the year had ripened the youth 
of the maiden, as it had mellowed the fruits of the earth ; 
and her cheek was rosy with the celestial blush, and her 
form rounded to the nameless grace, which say that in- 
fancy is no more. 

He advanced and took her hand, but for the fir^t time 
in his life in their greetings, he neither gave nor received 
the kiss. 

“ You are no child now, Edith,” said he, involuntarily ; 


HAROLD. 


165 


“but still set apart, I pray you, some remains of the old 
childish love for Harold. ” 

Edith’s charming lips smiled softly; she raised her eyes 
to his, and their innocent fondness spoke through happy 
tears. 

But few words passed in the short interval between 
Harold’s entrance and his retirement to the chamber 
prepared for him in haste. Hilda herself led him to a 
rude ladder which admitted to a room above, evidently 
added, by some Saxon lord, to the old Roman pile. The 
ladder showed the precaution of one accustomed to sleep 
in the midst of peril : for by a kind of windlass in the 
room, it could be drawn up at the inmate’s will, and, so 
drawn, left below a dark and deep chasm, delving down 
to the foundations of the house ; nevertheless the room 
itself had all the luxury of the time ; the bedstead was 
quaintly carved, and of some rare wood ; a trophy of 
arms — though very ancient, sedulously polished — hung 
on the wall. There were the small round shield and spear 
of the earlier Saxon, with his vizorless helm, and the 
short curved knife or saex,* from which some antiqua- 
rians deem that the Saxish men take their renowned 
name. 

Edith, following Hilda, proffered tc the guest, on a 

* It is a disputed question whether the s sex of the earliest Saxon 
invaders was a long or short curved weapon, — nay, whether it was 
curved or straight; but the author sides with those who contend 
that it was a short, crooked weapon, easily concealed by a cloak, 
and similar to those depicted on the banner of the East Saxons. 


166 


HAROLD. 


salver of gold, spiced wines and confections ; while Hilda, 
silently and unperceived, waved her seid-staff over the 
bed, and rested her pale hand on the pillow. 

“Nay, sweet cousin, ” said Harold, smiling, “this is 
not one of the fashions of old, but rather, methinks, 
borrowed from the Frankish manners in the court of 
King Edward.” 

“ Not so, Harold,” answered Hilda, quickly turning ; 
“ such was ever the ceremony due to Saxon king, when 
he slept in a subject’s house, ere our kinsmen the Danes 
introduced that unroyal wassail, which left subject and 
king unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board was 
left for the bed.” 

“ Thou rebukest, 0 Hilda, too tauntingly, the pride 
of Godwin’s House, when thou givest to his homely son 
the ceremonial of a king. But, so served, I envy not 
kings, fair Edith.” 

He took the cup, raised it to his lips, and when he 
placed it on the small table by his side, the woman had 
left the chamber, and he was alone. He stood for some 
minutes absorbed in reverie, and his soliloquy ran some- 
what thus : — 

“Why said the Yala that Edith’s fate was inwoven 
with mine ? And why did I believe and bless the Yala, 
^hen she so. said ? Can Edith ever be my wife ? The 
monk-king designs her for the cloister. — Woe and well-a- 
day ! — Sweyn, Sweyn, let thy doom forewarn me ! And 
if I stand up in my place and say, * Give age and grief 
to f e cloister — youth and delight to man’s hearth,’ 


HAROLD. 


167 


what will answer the monks ? ‘ Edith cannot be thy 

wife, son of Godwin, for faint and scarce traced though 
your affinity of blood, ye are within the banned degrees 
of the Church. Edith may be wife to another, if thou 
wilt — barren spouse of the Church, or mother of children 
who lisp not Harold’s name as their father.’ Out on 
these priests with their mummeries, and out on their war 
upon human hearts.” 

His fair brow grew stern and fierce as the Norman 
Duke’s in his ire ; and had you seen him at that moment 
you would have seen the true brother of Sweyn. He 
broke from his thoughts with the strong effect of a man 
habituated to self-control, and advancing to the narrow 
window, opened the lattice, and looked out. 

The moon was in all her splendor. The long deep 
shadows of the breathless forest chequered the silvery 
whiteness of open sward and intervening glade. Ghostly 
arose on the knoll before him the grey columns of the 
mystic Druid — dark and indistinct the bloody altar of 
the Warrior god. But there his eye was arrested ; for 
whatever is least distinct and defined ill a landscape has 
the charm that is the strongest ; and, while he gazed, he 
thought that a pale phosphoric light broke from the 
mound with the bautastein, that rose by the Teuton altar. 
He thought, for he was not sure that it was not some 
cheat of the fancy. Gazing still, in the centre of that 
light, there appeared to gleam forth for one moment, a 
form of superhuman height. It was the form of a man, 
that seemed clad in arms like those on the wall, leaning 


168 


HAROLD. 


on a spear, whose point was lost behind the shafts of the 
crommell. And the face grew in that moment distinct 
from the light which shimmered around it, a face large 
as some early god’s, but stamped with unutterable and 
solemn woe. He drew back a step, passed his hand over 
his eyes, and looked again. Light and figure alike had 
vanished ; nought was seen save the grey columns and 
the dim fane. The Earl’s lip curved in derision of his 
weakness. He closed the lattice, undressed, knelt for a 
moment or so by the bed-side, and his prayer was brief 
and simple, nor accompanied with the crossings and signs 
customary in his age. He rose, extinguished the lamp, 
and threw himself on the bed. 

The moon, thus relieved of the lamp-light, came clear 
and bright, through the room, shone on the trophied 
arms, and fell upon Harold’s face, casting its brightness 
on the pillow on which the Tala had breathed her charm. 
And Harold slept — slept long — his face calm, his breath- 
ing regular : but ere the moon sunk and the dawn rose, 
the features were dark and troubled, the breath came by 
gasps, the brow was knit, and the teeth clenched. 


BOOK FOURTH. 


THE HEATHEN ALTAR AND THE SAXON CHURCH. 


CHAPTER I. 

While Harold sleeps, let us here pause to survey for 
the first time the greatness of that House to which 
Sweyn’s exile had left him the heir. The fortunes of 
Godwin had been those which no man not eminently 
versed in the science of his kind can achieve. Though 
the fable which some modern historians of great name 
have repeated and detailed, as to his early condition as 
the son of a cow-herd, is utterly groundless, and he be- 
longed to a house all-powerful at the time of his youth, 
he was unquestionably the builder of his own greatness. 
That he should rise so high in the early part of his career 
was less remarkable than that he should have so long 
continued the possessor of a power and state in reality 
more than regal. 

But, as has been before implied, Godwin’s civil capa- 
cities were more prominent than his warlike. And this 
it is which invests him with that peculiar interest which 

T — 15 (169) 


170 HAROLD. 

attracts us to those who knit our modern intelligence 
with the past. In that dim world before the Norman 
deluge, we are startled to recognize the gifts, that ordi- 
narily distinguish a man of peace in a civilized age. 

His father, Wolnoth, had been “Childe”* of the 
South Saxons, or thegn of Sussex, a nephew of Edric 
Streone, Earl of Mercia, the unprincipled but able 
minister of Ethelred, who betrayed his master to Canute, 
by whom, according to most authorities, he was right- 
eously, though not very legally, slain as a reward for the 
treason. 

“I promised,” said the Dane king, “to set thy head 
higher than other men’s, and I keep my word.” The 
trunkless head was set on the gates of London. 

Wolnoth had quarrelled with his uncle Brightric, 
Edric’s brother, and before the arrival of Canute, had 
betaken himself to the piracy of a sea-chief, seduced 
twenty of the king’s ships, plundered the southern coasts, 
burnt the royal navy, and then his history disappears 
from the chronicles ; but immediately afterwards the 
great Danish army, called Thurkell’s Host, invaded the 

* Saxon Chronicle, Florence Wigorn. Sir F. Palgrave says that 
the title of Childe is equivalent to that of Atheling. With that 
remarkable appreciation of evidence which generally makes him 
so invaluable as a judicial authority where accounts are contra- 
dictory, Sir F. Palgrave discards with silent contempt the absurd 
romance of Godwin’s station of herdsman, to which, upon such 
very fallacious and flimsy authorities, Thierry and Sharon Turner 
have been betrayed into lending their distinguished names. 


HAROLD. 


m 


coast, and kept their chief station on the Thames. Theii 
victorious arms soon placed the country almost at their 
command. The traitor Edric joined them with a power 
of more than 10,000 men; and it is probable enough 
that the ships of Wolnoth had before this time melted 
amicably into the armament of the Danes. If this, which 
seems the most likely conjecture, be received, Godwin, 
then a mere youth, would naturally have commenced his 
career in the cause of Canute ; and as the son of a 
formidable chief of thegn’s rank, and even as kinsman 
to Edric, who, whatever his crimes, must have retained a 
party it was wise to conciliate, Godwin’s favor with 
Canute, whose policy would lead him to show marked 
distinction to any able Saxon follower, ceases to be sur 
prising. 

The son of Wolnoth accompanied Canute in his mili- 
tary expedition to the Scandinavian continent, and here 
a signal victory, planned by Godwin, and executed solely 
by himself and the Saxon band under his command, with- 
out aid from Canute’s Danes, made the most memorable 
military exploit of his life, and confirmed his rising for- 
tunes. 

Edric, though he is said to have been low-born, had 
married the sister of King Ethelred ; and as Godwin 
advanced in fame, Canute did not disdain to bestow his 
own sister in marriage on the eloquent favorite, who pro- 
bably kept no small portion of the Saxon population to 
their allegiance. On the death of this, his first wife, who 


172 


HAROLD. 


bore him but one son * (who died by accident), he found 
a second spouse in the same royal house ; and the mother 
of his six living sons and two daughters was the niece 
of his king, and sister of Sweyn, who subsequently filled 
the throne of Denmark. After the death of Canute, tfce 
Saxon’s predilections in favor of the Saxon line became 
apparent ; but it was either his policy or his principle 
always to defer to the popular will as expressed in the 
national council ; and on the preference given by the 
Witan to Harold the son of Canute over the heirs of 
Ethelred, he yielded his own inclinations. The great 
power of the Danes, and the amicable fusion of their race 
with the Saxon which had now taken place, are apparent 
in this decision ; for not only did Earl Leofric, of Mercia, 
though himself a Saxon (as well as the Earl of Northum- 
bria, with the thegns north of the Thames), declare for 
Harold the Dane, but the citizens of London were of the 
same party ; and Godwin represented little more than the 
feeling of his own principality of Wessex. 

From that time, Godwin, however, became identified 
with the English cause ; and even many who believed 
him guilty of some share in the murder, or at least the 
betrayal of Alfred, Edward’s brother, sought excuses n 
the disgust with which Godwin had regarded the foreign 
retinue that Alfred had brought with him, as if to owe 

* This first wife, Thyra, was of very unpopular repute with the 
Saxons. She was accused of sending young English persons as 
slaves into Denmark, and is said to have been killed by lightning. 


HAROLD. 173 

bis throne* to Norman swords, rather than to English 
hearts. 

Hardicanute, who succeeded Harold, whose memory 
he abhorred, whose corpse he disinterred and flung into 
a r en,-j* had been chosen by the unanimous council ooth 
<d English and Danish thegns ; and despite Hardi- 
ca mite’s first vehement accusations of Godwin, the Earl 
still remained throughout that reign as powerful as in the 
two preceding it. When Hardicanute dropped down dead 
at a marriage banquet, it was Godwin who placed Edward 
upon the throne ; and that great Earl must either have 
been conscious of his innocence of the murder of Ed- 
ward’s brother, or assured of his own irresponsible power, 
when he said to the prince who knelt at his feet, and, 
fearful of the difficulties in his way, implored the Earl 
to aid his abdication of the throne and return to Nor- 
mandy — 

“You are the son of Ethelred, grandson of Edgar. 
Reign, it is your duty ; better to live in glory than die 
in exile. You are of mature years, and having known 
sorrow and need, can better feel for your people. Rely 
on me, and there will be none of the difficulties you dreid ; 
whom I favor, England favors.” 

* It is just however to Godwin to say, that there is no proof of 
his share in this barbarous transaction ; the presumptions, on the 
contrary, are in his favor; but the authorities are too contradictory, 
and the whole event too obscure, to enable us unhesitatingly to 
confirm the acquittal he received in his own age, and from his own 
national tribunal. 

•j- Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 

15 * 


174 


HAROLD. 


And shortly afterwards, in the national assembly, God- 
win won Edward his throne. “Powerful in speech, 
powerful in bringing over people to what he desired, 
some yielded to his words, some to bribes.”* Verily, 
Godwin was a man to have risen as high had he lived 
later 1 

So Edward reigned, and agreeably, it is said, with 
previous stipulations, married the daughter of his king- 
maker. Beautiful as Edith the Queen was in mind and 
in person, Edward apparently loved her not. She dwelt 
in his palace, his wife only in name. 

Tostig (as we have seen) had married the daughter of 
Baldwin, Count of Flanders, sister to Matilda, wife to 
the Norman Duke ; and thus the House of Godwin was 
triply allied to princely lineage — the Danish, the Saxon, 
the Flemish. And Tostig might have said, as in his 
heart William the Norman said, “My children shall de- 
scend from Charlemagne and Alfred.” 

Godwin’s life, though thus outwardly brilliant, was too 
incessantly passed in public affairs and politic schemes 
to allow the worldly man much leisure to watch over the 
nurture and rearing of the bold spirits of his sons. Githa 
his wife, the Dane, a woman with a haughty but noble 
spirit, imperfect education, and some of the wild and 
lawless blood derived from her race of heathen sea-kings, 
was more fitted to stir their ambition, and inflame their 
fancies, than curb their tempers and mould their hearts 


* William of Malmesbury. 


HAROLD. 


176 

We have seen the career of Sweyn ; but Sweyn was an 
angel of light compared to his brother Tostig. He who 
can be penitent has ever something lofty in his original 
nature ; but Tostig was remorseless as the tiger, as trea- 
cherous and as fierce. With less intellectual capacities 
than any of his brothers, he had more personal ambition 
than all put together. A kind of effeminate vanity, not 
uncommon with daring natures (for the bravest races 
and the bravest soldiers are usually the vainest ; the de- 
sire to shine is as visible in the fop as in the hero), made 
him restless both for command and notoriety. “ May I 
ever be in the mouths of men,” was his favorite prayer. 
Like his maternal ancestry, the Danes, he curled his long 
hair, and went as a bridegroom to the feast of the ravens. 

Two only of that house had studied the Humane Let- 
ters, which were no longer disregarded by the princes of 
the Continent ; they were the sweet sister, the eldest of 
the family, fading fast in her loveless home, and Harold. 

But Harold’s mind, — in which what we call common 
sense was carried to genius, — a mind singularly practical 
and sagacious, like his father’s, cared little for theological 
learning and priestly legend — for all that poesy of re- 
ligion in which the Woman was wafted from the sorrows 
of earth. 

Godwin himself was no favorite of the Church, and 
had seen too much of the abuses of the Saxon priesthood 
(perhaps, with few exceptions, the most corrupt and 
illiterate in all Europe, which is saying much), to instil 
into bis children that reverence for the spiritual authority 


176 


HAROLD. 


which existed abroad ; and the enlightenment, which in 
him was experience in life, was in Harold, betimes, the 
result of study and reflection. The few books of the 
classical world then within reach of the student opened 
to the young Saxon views of human duties and human 
responsibilities utterly distinct from the unmeaning cere- 
monials and fleshly mortifications in which even the higher 
theology of that day placed the elements of virtue. He 
smiled in scorn when some Dane, whose life had been 
passed in the alternate drunkenness of wine and of blood, 
thought he had opened the gates of heaven by bequeath- 
ing lands gained by a robber’s sword, to pamper the lazy 
sloth of some fifty monks. If those monks had presumed 
to question his own actions, his disdain would have been 
mixed with simple wonder that men so besotted in igno- 
rance, and who could not construe the Latin of the very 
prayers they pattered, should presume to be the judges 
of educated men. It is possible — for his nature was 
earnest — that a pure and enlightened clergy, that even a 
clergy, though defective in life, zealous in duty, and culti- 
vated in mind, — such a clergy as Alfred sought to found, 
and as Lanfranc endeavored (not without some success) 
to teach — would have bowed his strong sense to that 
grand and subtle truth which dwells in spiritual authority. 
But as it was, he stood aloof from the rude superstition 
of his age, and early in life made himself the arbiter of 
his own conscience. Reducing his religion to the sim- 
plest elements of our creed, he found rather in the books 


HAROLD. 


m 


of Heathen authors than in the lives of the saints, his 
notions of the larger morality which relates to the citizen 
and the man. The love of country ; the sense of justice ; 
fortitude in adverse, and temperance in prosperous for- 
tune, became portions of his very mind. Unlike his 
father, he played no actor’s part in those qualities which 
had won him the popular heart. He was gentle and 
affable; above all, he was fair-dealing and just, not be- 
cause it was politic to seem, but his nature to be, so. 

Nevertheless, Harold’s character, beautiful and sublime 
in many respects as it was, had its strong leaven of human 
imperfection in that very self-dependence which was born 
of his reason and his pride. In resting so solely on man’s 
perceptions of the right, he lost one attribute of the true 
hero — -faith. We do not mean that word in the religious 
sense alone, but in the more comprehensive. He did not 
rely on the Celestial Something pervading all nature, 
never seen, only felt when duly courted, stronger and 
lovelier than what eye could behold and mere reason 
could embrace. Believing, it is true, in God, he lost 
those fine links that unite God to man’s secret heart, and 
which are woven alike from the simplicity of the child 
and the wisdom of the poet. To use a modern illustra- 
tion, his large mind was a “cupola lighted from below.” 

His bravery, though inflexible as the fiercest sea-king’s, 
when need arose for its exercise, was not his prominent 
characteristic. He despised the brute valor of Tostig, — 
his bravery was a necessary part of a firm and balanced 
15 * 


M 


178 


HAROLD. 


manhood — the bravery of Hector, not Achilles. Con- 
stitutionally averse to bloodshed, he could seem timid 
where daring only gratified a wanton vanity, or aimed at 
a selfish object. On the other hand, if duty demanded 
daring, no danger could deter, no policy warp him; — be 
could seem rash ; he could even seem merciless. In the 
what ought to be, he understood a must be. 

And it was natural to this peculiar, yet thoroughly 
English temperament, to be, in action, rather steadfast 
and patient than quick and ready. Placed in perils 
familiar to him, nothing could exceed his vigor and ad- 
dress ; but if taken unawares, and before his judgment 
could come to his aid, he was liable to be surprised into 
error. Large minds are rarely quick, unless they have 
been corrupted into unnatural vigilance by the necessities 
of suspicion. But a nature more thoroughly unsuspect- 
ing, more frank, trustful, and genuinely loyal than that 
young Earl’s, it was impossible to conceive. All these 
attributes considered, we have the key to much of Harold’s 
character and conduct in the later events of his fated and 
tragic life. 

But with this temperament, so manly and simple, we 
are not to suppose that Harold, while rejecting the super- 
stitions of one class, was so far beyond his time as to re- 
ject those of another. No son of fortune, no man placing 
himself and the world in antagonism, can ever escape 
from some belief in the Invisible. Caesar could ridicule 
and profane the mystic rites of Roman mythology, bat 


H A Ft O L D . 


179 


he must still believe in his fortune , as in a god. And 
Harold, in his very studies, seeing the freest and boldest 
minds of antiquity subjected to influences akin to those 
of his Saxon forefathers, felt less shame in yielding to 
them, vain as they might be, than in monkish impostures 
s ; easily detected. Though hitherto he had rejected all 
direct appeal to the magic devices of Hilda, the sound 
of her dark sayings, heard in childhood, still vibrated on 
his soul as man. Belief in omens, in days lucky or un- 
lucky, in the stars, was universal in every class of the 
Saxon. Harold had his own fortunate day, the day of 
his nativity, the 1 4th of October. All enterprises un- 
dertaken on that day had hitherto been successful. He 
believed in the virtue of that day, as Cromwell believed 
in his 3rd of September. For the rest, we have described 
him as he was in that part of his career in which he is 
now presented. Whether altered by fate and circum- 
stances, time will show. As yet, no selfish ambition 
leagued with the natural desire of youth and intellect for 
their fair share of fame and power. His patriotism, fed 
by the example of Greek and Roman worthies, was 
genuine, pure, and ardent ; he could have stood in the 
pass with Leonidas, or leaped into the gulf with Curtius. 


180 


HAROLD 


CHAPTER II. 

At dawn, Harold woke from uneasy and broken slum- 
bers, and his eyes fell upon the face of Hilda large and 
fair, and unutterably calm, as the face of Egyptian sphinx. 

“ Have thy dreams been prophetic, son of Godwin ?” 
said the Vala. 

“ Our Lord forfend,” replied the Earl, with unusual 
devoutness. 

“ Tell them, and let me read the rede ; sense dwells in 
the voices of the night.” 

Harold mused, and after a short pause he said: 

“ Methinks, Hilda, I can myself explain how those 
dreams came to haunt me.” 

Then raising himself on his elbow, he continued, while 
he fixed his clear penetrating eyes upon his hostess : — 

“Tell me frankly, Hilda, didst thou not cause some 
light to shine on yonder knoll, by the mound and stone, 
within the temple of the Druids?” 

But if Harold had suspected himself to be the dupe of 
some imposture, the thought vanished when he saw the 
look of keen interest, even of awe, which Hilda’s face 
instantly assumed. 

“ Didst thou see a light, son of Godwin, by the altar 
of Thor, and over the bautastein of the mighty dead ? a 
flame, lambent and livid, like moonbeams collected over 
snow ? ” 


HAROLD. 


181 


“So seemed to me the light.” 

“No human hand ever kindled that flame, which 
announces the presence of the Dead,” said Hilda, with a 
tremulous voice; “though seldom, uncompelled by the 
seid and the rune, does the spectre itself warn the eyes 
of the living.” 

“What shape, or what shadow of shape, does that 
spectre assume ? ” 

“ It rises in the midst of the flame, pale as the mist on 
the mountain, and vast as the giants of old ; with the 
saex, and the spear, and the shield, of the sons of Woden. 
Thou hast seen the Scin-laeca,” continued Hilda, looking 
full on the face of the Earl. 

“ If thou deceivest me not,” began Harold, doubting 
still. 

“ Deceive thee ! not to save the crown of the Saxon 
dare I mock the might of the dead. Knowest thou not 
— or hath thy vain lore stood in place of the lore of thy 
fathers — that where a hero of old is buried, his treasures 
lie in his grave ; that over that grave is at times seen at 
night the flame that thou sawest, and the dead in his 
image of air ? Oft seen in the days that are gone, when 
the dead and the living had one faith — were one ra.e; 
now never marked, but for portent, and prophecy, and 
doom : glory or woe to the eyes that see ! On yon knoll, 
jEsc, (the first-born of Cerdic, that Father-King of the 
Saxons,) has his grave where the mound rises green, and 
the stone gleams wan, by the altar of Thor. He smote 
the Britons in their temple, and he fell smiting. They 
I. — 16 


182 


HAROLD. 


buried him in his arms, and with the treasures his right 
hand had won. Fate hangs on the house of Cerdic, or 
the realm of the Saxon, when Woden calls the lseca of 
his son from the grave.” 

Hilda, much troubled, bent her face over her clasped 
hands, and, rocking to and fro, muttered some runes un- 
intelligible to the ear of her listener. Then she turned 
to him, commandingly, and said : — 

“Thy dreams now, indeed, are oracles, more true than 
living Yala could charm with the wand, and the rune : 
Unfold them.” 

Thus adjured, Harold resumed: — 

“ Methought, then, that I was on a broad, level plain, 
in the noon of day ; all was clear to my eye, and glad to 
my heart. I was alone, and went on my way rejoicing. 
Suddenly the earth opened under my feet, and I fell deep, 
fathom-deep ; — deep, as if to that central pit, which our 
heathen sires called Niffelheim — the Home of Yapor — 
the hell of the dead who die without glory. Stunned by 
the fall, I lay long, locked as in a dream in the midst oi 
a dream. When I opened my eyes, behold, I was girt 
round with dead men’s bones ; and the bones moved round 
me, undulating, as the dry leaves that wirble round in 
the winds of the winter. And from the midst of them 
peered a trunkless skull, and on the skull was a mitre, 
and from the yawning jaws a voice came hissing, as a 
serpent’s hiss, ‘ Harold the scorner, thou art ours ! ’ 
Then, as from the buzz of an army, came voices multi- 
tudinous, ‘ Thou art ours ! ’ I sought to rise, and behold 


HAROLD. 


183 


my limbs were bound, and the gyves were fine and frail, 
as the web of the gossamer, and they weighed on me like 
chains of iron. And I felt an anguish of soul that no 
words can speak — an anguish both of horror and shame ; 
and my manhood seemed to ooze from me, and I was 
weak as a child new born. Then suddenly there rushed 
forth a freezing wind, as from an air of ice, and the bones 
from their whirl stood still, and the buzz ceased, and the 
mitred skull grinned on me still and voiceless ; and ser- 
pents darted their arrowy tongues from the eyeless sock- 
ets. And lo, before me stood (0 Hilda, I see it now I) 
the form of the spectre that had risen from yonder knoll. 
With his spear, and saex, and his shield, he stood before 
me ; and his face, though pale as that of one long dead, 
was stern as the face of a warrior in the van of armed 
man ; he stretched his hand, and he smote his saex on his 
shield, and the clang sounded hollow ; the gyves broke at 
the clash — I sprang to my feet, and I stood side by side 
with the phantom, dauntless. Then, suddenly, the mitre 
on the skull changed to a helm ; and where the skull had 
grinned, trunkless and harmless, stood a shape like War, 
made incarnate; — a Thing above giants, with its crest 
to the stars, and its form an eclipse between the sun and 
the day. The earth changed to ocean, and the ocean 
was blood, and the ocean seemed deep as the seas where 
the whales sport in the North, but the surge rose not to 
the knee of that measureless image. And the ravens 
came round it from all parts of the heaven, and the vul- 
tures with dead eyes and dull scream. And all the bones, 


184 


HAROLD. 


before scattered and shapeless, sprung to life and to 
form, some monks and some warriors ; and there was a 
hoot, and a hiss, and a roar, and the storm of arms. And 
a broad pennon rose out of the sea of blood, and from 
the clouds came a pale hand, and it wrote on the pennon, 
“ Harold the Accursed ! 1 Then said the stern shape by 
his side, ‘ Harold, fearest thou the dead men’s bones ? ’ 
and its voice was as a trumpet that gives strength to the 
craven, and I answered, ‘Niddering, indeed, were Harold 
to fear the bones of the dead ! ” 

“As I spoke, as if hell had burst loose, came a gibber 
of scorn, and all vanished at once, save the ocean of 
blood. Slowly came from the north, over the sea, a bird 
like a raven, save that it was blood-red, like the ocean ; 
and there came from the south, swimming towards me, a 
lion. And I looked to the spectre ; and the pride of war 
l)ad gone from its face, which was so sad that methought 
I forgot raven and lion, and wept to see it. Then the 
spectre took me in its vast arms, and its breath froze my 
veins, and it kissed my brow, and my lips, and said, gently 
and fondly, as my mother, in some childish sickness, ‘ Ha- 
rold, my best beloved, mourn not. Thou hast all which 
the sons of Woden dreamed in their dreams of Valhalla P 
Thus saying, the form receded slowly, slowly, still gazing 
on me with its sad eyes. I stretched forth my hand to 
detain it, and in my grasp was a shadowy sceptre. And, 
lo ! round me, as if from the earth, sprang up thegns 
and chiefs, in their armor ; and a board was spread, and 
a wassail was blithe around me. So my heart felt cheered 


HAROLD. 


185 


and light, and in ray hand was still the sceptre. And we 
feasted long and merrily ; but t)ver the feast flapped the 
wings of the blood-red raven, and, over the blood-red sea 
beyond, swam the lion, near and near. And in the hea- 
vens there were two stars, one pale and steadfast, the 
other rushing and luminous ; and a shadowy hand pointed 
from the cloud to the pale star, and a voice said, ‘ Lo, 
Harold ! the star that shone on thy birth.’ And another 
hand pointed to the luminous star, and another voice 
said, ‘ Lo ! the star that shone on the birth of the victor.’ 
Then, lo ! the bright star grew fiercer and larger ; and, 
rolling on with a hissing sound, as when hot iron is dipped 
into water, it rushed over the disk of the mournful planet, 
and the whole heavens seemed on fire. So methought 
the dream faded away, and in fading, I heard a full swell 
of music, as the swell of an anthem in an aisle : a music 
like that which but once in my life I heard ; when I stood 
in the train of Edward, in the halls of Winchester, the 
day they crowned him king.” 

Harold ceased, and the Yala slowly lifted her head 
from her bosom, and surveyed him in profound silence, 
and with a gaze that seemed vacant and meaningless. 

“ Why dost thou look on me thus, and why art thou 
so silent ? ” asked the Earl. 

“ The cloud is on my sight, and the burthen is on my 
soul, and I cannot read thy rede,” murmured the Yala. 
“But morn, the ghost-chaser, that waketh life, the action, 
charms into slumber life, the thought. As the stars pale 
at the rising of the sun, so fade the lights of the soul 
16 * 


186 


HAROLD. 


when the buds revive in the dews, and the lark sings to 
the day. In thy dream lies thy future, as the wing of the 
moth in the web of the changing worm ; but, whether 
for weal or for woe, thou shalt burst through thy mesh, 
and spread thy plumes in the air. Of myself I know 
nought. Await the hour when Skulda shall pass into the 
soul of her servant, and thy fate shall rush from my lips 
as the rush of the waters from the heart of the cave.’ , 

“ I am content to abide,” said Harold, with his wonted 
smile, so calm and so lofty : “ but I cannot promise thee 
that I shall heed thy rede, or obey thy warning, when my 
reason hath awoke, as while I speak it awakens, from the 
fumes of the fancy and the mists of the night.” 

The Vala sighed heavily, but made no answer. 


CHAPTER III. 

Githa, Earl Godwin’s wife, sate in her chamber, and 
her heart was sad. In the room was one of her sons, the 
one dearer to her than all, Woluoth, her darling. For 
the rest of her sons were stalwart and strong of frame, 
and in their infancy she had known not a mother’s fears. 
But Wolnoth had come into the world before his time, 
and sharp had been the travail of the mother, and long 
between life and death the struggle of the new-born babe. 
And his cradle had been rocked with a trembling knee, 
and his pillow been bathed with hot tears. Frail had 


HAROLD. 


181 


been his childhood — a thing that hung on uer care ; 
and now, as the boy grew, blooming and strong, into 
youth, the mother felt that she had given life twice to 
her child. Therefore was he more dear to her than the 
rest ; and, therefore, as she gazed upon him now, fair 
and smiling, and hopeful, she mourned for him more than 
for Sweyn, the outcast and criminal, on his pilgrimage 
of woe, to the waters of Jordan, and the tomb of our 
Lord. For Wolnoth, selected as the hostage for the 
faith of his house, was to be sent from her arms to the 
Court of William the Norman. And the youth smiled 
and was gay, choosing vestment and mantle, and ateghars 
of gold, that he might be flaunting and brave in the halls 
of knighthood and beauty, — the school of the proudest 
chivalry of the Christian world. Too young and too 
thoughtless, to share the wise hate of his elders for the 
manners and forms of the foreigners, their gaiety and 
splendor, as his boyhood had seen them, relieved the 
gloom of the cloister court, and contrasting the spleen 
and the rudeness of the Saxon temperament, had dazzled 
his fancy and half Normanized his mind. A proud and 
happy boy was he to go as hostage for the faith, and re- 
presentative of the rank, of his mighty kinsmen ; and 
step into manhood in the eyes of the dames of Rouen. 

By Wolnoth’s side stood his young sister, Thyra, a 
mere infant ; and her innocent sympathy with her bro- 
ther’s pleasure in gaud and toy saddened Githa yet more. 

“0 my son !” said the troubled mother, “why, of all 
my children, have they chosen thee ? Harold is wise 


188 


HAROLD. 


against danger, and Tostig is fierce against foe~, and 
Gurth is too loving to wake hate in the sternest, and 
from the mirth of sunny Leofwine sorrow glints aside, as 
the shaft from the sheen of a shield. But thou, thou, O 
beloved ! — cursed be the king that chose thee, and cruel 
was the father that forgot the light of the mother’s eyes ! ” 
“Tut, mother the dearest,” said Wolnoth, pausing 
from the contemplation of a silk robe, all covered with 
broidered peacocks, which had been sent him as a gift 
from his sister the queen, and wrought with her own fair 
hands ; for a notable needle-woman, despite her sage 
leer, was the wife of the Saint King, as sorrowful women 
mostly are — “ Tut ! the bird must leave the nest when 
the wings are fledged. Harold the eagle, Tostig the kite, 
Gurth the ring-dove, and Leofwine the stare. See, my 
wings are the richest of all, mother, and bright is the 
sun in which thy peacock shall spread his pranked 
plumes.” 

Then, observing that his liveliness provoked no smile 
from his mother, he approached, and said niore seriously : 

“Bethink thee, mother mine. No other choice was 
left to king or to father. Harold, and Tostig, and Leof- 
wine, have their lordships and offices. Their posts are 
fix^d, and they stand as the columns of our house And 
Gurth is so young, and so Saxish, and so the shadow of 
Harold, that his hate to the Norman is a by-word 
already among our youths ; for hate is the more marked 
in a temper of love, as the blue of this border seems 


HAROLD. 


18 $ 


black against the white of the woof. But I; — the good 
king knows that I shall be welcome, for the Norman 
knights love Wolnoth, and I have spent hours by the 
knees of Montgommeri and Grantmesnil, listening to the 
feats of Rolfganger, and playing with their gold chains 
of knighthood. And the stout Count himself shall knight 
me, and I shall come back with the spurs of gold which 
thy ancestors, the brave kings of Norway and Daneland, 
wore ere knighthood was known. Come, kiss me, my 
mother, and come see the brave falcons Harold has sent 
me: — true Welch!” 

Githa rested her face on her son’s shoulder, and her 
tears blinded her. The door opened gently, and Harold 
entered ; and with the Earl, a pale dark-haired boy, 
Haco, the son of Sweyn. 

But Githa, absorbed in her darling Wolnoth, scarce 
saw the grandchild reared afar from her knees, and hurried 
at once to Harold. In his presence she felt comfort and 
safety ; for Wolnoth leaned on her heart, and her heart 
leaned on Harold. 

“ 0 son, son ! ” she cried, “ firmest of hand, surest of 
faith, and wisest of brain, in the house of Godwin, tell 
me that he yonder, he thy young brother risks no danger 
in the halls of the Normans!” 

“ Not more than in these, mother,” answered Harold, 
soothing her, with caressing lip and gentle tone. “Fierce 
and ruthless, men say, is William the Duke against foes 
with their swords in their hands, but debonnair and mild 


i 90 


HAROLD. 


to the gentle,* frank host and kind lord. And these 
Normans have a code of their own, more grave than all 
morals, more binding than even their fanatic religion. 
Thou knowest it well, mother, for it comes from thy race 
of the North, and this code of honor , they call it, makes 
Wolnoth’s head as sacred as the relics of a saint set in 
zimmes. Ask only, my brother, when thou comest in 
sight of the Norman Duke, ask only ‘the kiss of peace,’ 
and, that kiss on thy brow, thou wilt sleep more safely 
than if all the banners of England waved over thy 
couch.” f 

“ But how long shall the exile be ?” asked Githa, com- 
forted. 

Harold’s brow fell. 

“ Mother, not even to cheer thee will I deceive. The 
time of the hostageship rests with the king and the duke. 
As long as the one affects fear from the race of Godwin, 
as long as the other feigns care for such priests or such 
knights as were not banished from the realm, being not 
courtiers, but scattered wide and far in convent and home- 


* So Robert of Gloucester says pithily of William, “ King Wylliam 
was to mild men debonnere ynou.” — Hearnf v. ii. p. 309. 

f This kiss of peace was held singularly sacked by the Normans, 
and all the more knightly races of the continent Even the craftiest 
dissimulator, designing fraud and stratagem, and murder to a foe, 
would not, to gain his ends, betray the pledge of the kiss of peace. 
When Henry II. consented to meet Becket after his return from 
Rome, and promised to remedy all of which his prelate complained, 
he struck prophetic dismay into Becket’s heart by evading the kiss 
of peace. 


HAROLD. 


191 


stead, so long will Wolnoth and Haco be guests in the 
Norman Halls.” 

Githa wrung her hands. 

“ But comfort, my mother ; Wolnoth is young, his eye 
is keen, and his spirit prompt and quick. He will mark 
these Norman captains, he will learn their strength and 
their weakness, their manner of war, and he will come 
back, not as Edward the King came, a lover of things 
un-Saxon, but able to warn and to guide us against the 
plots of the camp-court, which threatens more, year by 
year, the peace of the world. And he will see there arts 
we may worthily borrow ; not the cut of a tunic, and the 
fold of a gonna, but the arts of men who found states 
and build nations. William the Duke is splendid and 
wise ; merchants tell us how crafts thrive under his iron 
hand, and warmen say that his forts are constructed with 
skill, and his battle-schemes planned as the mason plans 
key-stone and arch, with weight portioned out to the 
prop, and the force of the hand made tenfold by the 
science of the brain. So that the boy will return to us 
a man round and complete, a teacher of greybeards, and 
the sage of his kin ; fit for earldom and rule, fit for glory 
and England. Grieve not, daughter of the Dane kings, 
that thy son, the best loved, hath nobler school and wider 
field than his brothers.” 

This appeal touched the proud heart of the niece of 
Canute the Great, and she almost forgot the grief of her 
love in the hope of her ambition. 

She dried her tears ar.d smiled upon Wolnoth, and 


192 


HAROLD. 


already, in the dreams of a mother’s vanity, saw him 
great as Godwin in council, and prosperous as Harold in 
the field. Nor, half Norman as he was, did the young 
man seem insensible of the manly and elevated patriotism 
of his brother’s hinted lessons, though he felt they im- 
plied reproof. He came to the Earl, whose arm was 
round his mother, and said with a frank heartiness not 
usual to a nature somewhat frivolous and irresolute — 

“ Harold, thy tongue could kindle stones into men, and 
warm those men into Saxons. Thy Wolnoth shall not 
hang his head with shame when he comes back to our 
merrie land with shaven locks and spurs of gold. For 
if thou doubtest his race from his look, thou shalt put 
thy right hand on his heart, and feel England beat there 
in every pulse.” 

“Brave words, and well spoken,” cried the Earl, and 
he placed his hand on the boy’s head as in benison. 

Till then, Haco had stood apart, conversing with the 
infant Thyra, whom his dark, mournful face awed and 
yet touched, for she nestled close to , him, and put her 
little hand in his ; but now, inspired no less than his 
cousin by Harold’s noble speech, he came proudly forward 
by Wolnoth’s side, and said — 

“I, too, am English, and I have the name of English- 
man to redeem.” 

Ere Harold could reply, Githa exclaimed — 

“ Leave there thy right hand on my child’s head, and 
say, simply, — ‘By my troth and my plight, if the Duke 
detain Wolnoth, son of Githa, against just plea, and 


HAROLD. 


193 


king’s assent to his return, I, Harold, will, failing letter 
and nuncins, cross the seas, to restore the child to the 
mother.’ ” 

Harold hesitated. 

A sharp cry of reproach that went to his heart broke 
from Githa’s lips. 

‘Ah ! cold and self-heeding, wilt thou send him to bear 
a peril from which thou shrinkest thyself ? ” 

“ By my troth and my plight, then,” said the Earl, “ if, 
fair time elapsed, peace in England, without plea of jus- 
tice, and against my king’s fiat, Duke William of Nor- 
mandy detain the hostages, — thy son and this dear boy, 
more sacred and more dear to me for his father’s woes, — 
I will cross the seas to restore the child to the mother, 
the fatherless to his father-land. So help me, all-seeing 
One, Amen and Amen ! ” 


CHAPTER IT. 

We have seen, in an earlier part of this record, that 
Harold possessed, amongst his numerous and more stately 
possessions, a house, not far from the old Roman dwell- 
ing-place of Hilda. And in this residence he now (save 
when the king) made his chief abode. He gave as the 
reasons for his selection, the charm it took, in his eyes, 
from that signal mark of affection which his ceorls had 
rendered him, in purchasing the house and tilling the 
T — 17 


N 


HAROLD. 


1»4 

ground in his absence ; and more especially the con- 
venience of its vicinity to the new palace at Westminster ; 
for by Edward’s special desire, while the other brothers 
repaired to their different domains, Harold remained near 
his royal person. To use the words of the great Nor- 
wegian chronicler, “ Harold was always with the Court 
itself, and nearest to the king in all service.” “ The king 
loved him very much, and kept him as his own son, for 
he had no children.”* This attendance on Edward was 
naturally most close at the restoration to power of the 
Earl’s family. For Harold, mild and conciliating, was, 
like Aired, a great peace-maker, and Edward had never 
cause to complain of him, as he believed he had of the 
rest of that haughty house. But the true spell which 
made dear to Harold the rude building of timber, with 
its doors open all day to its lithsmen, when with a light 
heart he escaped from the halls of Westminster, was the 
fair face of Edith his neighbor. The impression which 
this young girl had made upon Harold seemed to par- 
take of the strength of a fatality. For Harold had loved 
her before the marvellous beauty of her womanhood be- 
gan ; and, occupied from his earliest youth in grave and 
earnest affairs, his heart had never been frittered away 
on the mean and frivolous affections of the idle. Now, 
in that comparative leisure of his stormy life, he was 
naturally most open to the influence of a charm more 
potent than all the glamoury of Hilda. 


* Snorro Sturlf.son’s JTeimskringla. — Laing’s Translation, pp. 
75 - 77 . 


HAROLD. 


195 


The autumn sun shone through the golden glades of 
the forest-land, when Edith sate alone on the knoll that 
faced forest-land and road, and watched afar. 

And the birds sung cheerily ; but that was not the 
sound for which Edith listened : and the squirrel darted 
from tree to tree on the sward beyond ; but not to see 
the games of the squirrel sate Edith by the grave of the 
Teuton. By-and-by, came the cry of the dogs, and the 
tall greyhound * of Wales emerged from the bosky dells. 
Then Edith’s heart heaved, and her eyes brightened. 
And now, with his hawk on his wrist, and his spear f in 
his hand, came through the yellowing boughs, Harold 
the Earl. 

And well may ye ween, that his heart beat as loud and 
his eye shone as bright as Edith’s, when he saw who had 
watched for his footsteps on the sepulchral knoll ; Love, 
forgetful of the presence of Death ; — so has it ever been, 
so ever shall it be ! He hastened his stride, and bounded 
up the gentle hillock, and his dogs, with a joyous bark, 
came round the knees of Edith. Then Harold shook the 
bird from his wrist, ana it fell, with its light wing, on the 
altar-stone of Thor. 

“Thou art late, but thou art welcome, Harold my 
kinsman,” said Edith, simply, as she bent her face over 
the hounds, whose gaunt heads she caressed 

* The gre-hound was so called from hunting the gre, or badger. 

f The spear and the hawk were as the badges of Saxon nobility; 
and a thegn was seldom seen abroad without the one on his left 
wrist, the other in his right hand. 


196 


HAROLD. 


“Call me not kinsman,” said Harold, shrinking, and 
with a dark cloud on his broad brow. 

“And why, Harold?” 

“Oh, Edith, why?” murmured Harold; and his 
thought added, “she knows not, poor child, that in that 
mockery of kinship the Church sets its ban on our 
bridals.” 

He turned, and chid his dogs fiercely as they gambolled 
in rough glee round their fair friend. 

The hounds crouched at the feet of Edith ; and Edith 
looked in mild wonder at the troubled face of the Earl. 

“ Thine eyes rebuke me, Edith, more than my words 
the hounds 1 ” said Harold, gently. “ But there is quick 
blood in my veins ; and the mind must be calm when it 
would control the humor. Calm was my mind, sweet 
Edith, in the old time, when thou wert an infant on my 
knee, and wreathing, with these rude hands, flower-chains 
for thy neck like the swan’s down, I said — ‘The flowers 
fade, but the chain lasts when love weaves it.’” 

Edith again bent her face over the crouching hounds. 
Harold gazed on her with mournful fondness ; and the 
bird still sung, and the squirrel swung himself again from 
bough to bough. Edith spoke first — 

“My godmother, thy sister, hath sent for me, Harold, 
and I am to go to the court to-morrow. Shalt thou be 
there ? ” 

“ Surely,” said Harold, in an anxious voice, “ surely, I 
will be there ! So my sister hath sent for thee : wittest 
thou wherefore?” 


HAROLD. 197 

Edith grew very pale, and her tone trembled as she 
answered — 

“Well-a-day, yes.” 

“ It is as I feared, then !” exclaimed Harold, in great 
agitation; “and my sister, whom these monks have de- 
mented, leagues herself with the king against the law of 
the wide welkin and the grand religion of the human 
heart. Oh ! ” continued the Earl, kindling into an en- 
thusiasm, rare to his even moods, but wrung as much from 
his broad sense as from his strong affection, “ when I 
compare the Saxon of our land and day, all enervated 
and decrepit by priestly superstition, with his forefathers 
in the first Christian era, yielding to the religion they 
adopted in its simple truths, but not to that rot of social 
happiness and free manhood which this cold and lifeless 
monachism — making virtue the absence of human ties — 
spreads around — which the great Bede,* though himself 
a monk, vainly but bitterly denounced ; — yea, verily, 
when I see the Saxon already the theowe of the priest, 
I shudder to ask how long he will be folk-free of the 
tyrant. ” 

He paused, breathed hard, and seizing, almost sternly, 
the girl’s trembling arm, he resumed between his set 
teeth, — “ So they would have thee be a nun ? — Thou 
wilt not, — thou durst not, — thy heart would perjure thy 
vows ! ” 

“ Ah, Harold ! ” answered Edith, moved out of all 


17 * 


* Bed. Epist. ad Egbert. 


198 


HAROLD. 


bashfulness by his emotion and her own terror of the 
convent, and answering, if with the love of a woman, still 
with all the unconsciousness of a child : “ better, oh better 
the grate of the body than that of the heart ! — In the 
grave I could still live for those I love ; behind the Grate, 
love itself must be dead. Yes, thou pitiest me, Harold; 
thy sister, the queen, is gentle and kind ; I will fling ray- 
self at her feet, and say — ‘ Youth is fond, and the world 
is fair : let me live my youth, and bless God in the world 
that He saw was good ! ’ ” 

“ My own, own dear Edith 1 ” exclaimed Harold, over- 
joyed. “ Say this. Be firm ; they cannot, and they dare 
not force thee ! The law cannot wrench thee against thy 
will from the ward of thy guardian Hilda ; and, where 
the law is, there Harold at least is strong, — and there at 
least our kinship, if my bane, is thy blessing.” 

“Why, Harold, sayest thou that our kinship is thy 
bane ? It is so sweet to me to whisper to myself, ‘ Ha- 
rold is of thy kith, though distant; and it is natural to 
thee to have pride in his fame, and joy in his presence ! * 
Why is that sweetness to me, to thee so bitter ? ” 

“ Because,” answered Harold, dropping the hand he 
had clasped, and folding his arms in deep dejection, “ be- 
cause but for that I should say — ‘ Edith, I love thee more 
than a brother : Edith, be Harold’s wife ! ’ And were I 
to say it, and were we to wed, all the priests of the Saxons 
would lift up their hands in horror, and curse our nup- 
tials; and I should be the bann’d of that spectre the 
Church; and my house would shake to its foundations; 


HAROLD. 


109 


and my father, and my brothers, and the tliegns and the 
proceres, and the abbots and prelates, whose aid makes 
our force, would gather round me with threats and with 
prayers, that I might put thee aside. And mighty as ] 
am now, so mighty once was Sweyn my brother ; and 
outlaw as Sweyn is now, might Harold be, and outlaw 
if Harold were, what breast so broad as his could fill up 
the gap left in the defence of England ? And the pas- 
sions that I curb, as a rider his steed, might break their 
rein ; and, strong in justice, and child of Nature, I might 
come, with banner and mail, against Church, and House, 
and Father-land ; and the blood of my countrymen might 
be poured like water : and, therefore, slave to the lying 
thraldom he despises, Harold dares not say to the maid 
of his love, — * Give me thy right hand, and be my 
bride ! f ” 

Edith had listened in bewilderment and despair, her 
eyes fixed on his, and her face locked and rigid, as if 
turned to stone. But when he had ceased, an.d, moving 
some steps away, turned aside his manly countenance, 
that Edith might not perceive its anguish, the noble and 
sublime spirit of that sex which ever, when lowliest, most 
comprehends the lofty, rose superior both to love and to 
grief ; and rising, she advanced, and placing her slight 
hand on his stalwart shoulder, she said, half in pity, half 
in reverence — 

“ Never before, 0 Harold, did I feel so proud of thee: 
for Edith could not love thee as she doth, and will till 
the grave clasp her, if thou didst not love England more 


200 


HAROLD. 


»han Edith. Harold, till this hour I was a child, and I 
knew not my own heart : I look now into that heart, and 
I see that I am woman. Harold, of the cloister I have 
now no fear: and all life does not shrink — no, it en- 
larges, and it soars into one desire — to be worthy to pray 
for thee ! ” 

“ Maid, maid I ” exclaimed Harold, abruptly, and pale 
as the dead, “ do not say thou hast no fear of the cloister. 
I adjure, I command thee, build not up between us that 
dismal everlasting wall. While thou art free, Hope yet 
survives — a phantom, haply, but Hope still.-” 

“As thou wilt, I will,” said Edith, humbly: “order 
my fate so as pleases thee the best.” 

Then, not daring to trust herself longer, for she felt 
the tears rushing to her eyes, she turned away hastily, 
and left him alone beside the altar-stone and the tomb. 


CHAPTER Y. 

The next day, as Harold was entering the palace of 
Westminster, with intent to seek the king’s lady, his 
father met him in one of the corridors, and taking him 
gravely by the hand, said — 

“ My son, I have much on my mind regarding thee and 
our House; come with me.” 

“ Nay,” said the Earl, “ by your leave let it be later. 
For I have it on hand to see my sister, ere confessor, or 
monk, or schoolman, claim her hours ! ” 


HAROLD. 


201 


“Not so, Harold,” said the Earl, briefly. “My 
daughter is now in her oratory, and we shall have time 
enow to treat of things mundane ere she is free to receive 
thee, and to preach to thee of things ghostly, the last 
miracle at St. Alban’s, or the last dream of the king, who 
would be a great man and a stirring, if as restless when 
awake as he is in his sleep. Come.” 

Harold, in that filial obedience which belonged, as of 
course, to his antique cast of character, made no farther 
effort to escape, but with a sigh followed Godwin into 
one of the contiguous chambers. 

“ Harold,” then said Earl Godwin, after closing the 
door carefully, “thou must not let the king keep thee 
longer in dalliance and idleness : thine earldom needs 
thee without delay. Thou knowest that these East 
Angles, as we Saxons still call them, are in truth mostly 
Danes and Norsemen ; a people jealous and fierce, and 
free, and more akin to the Normans than to the Saxons. 
My whole power in England hath been founded, not less 
on my common birth with the freefolk of Wessex — Saxons 
like myself, and therefore easy for me, a Saxon, to con- 
ciliate and control — than on the hold I have ever sought 
to establish, whether by arms or by arts, over the Danes 
in the realm. And I tell and I warn thee, Harold, as 
the natural heir of my greatness, that he who cannot 
command the stout hearts of the Anglo-Danes, will never 
maintain the race of Godwin in the post they have won 
in the van-guard of Saxon England.” 

“ This I wot well, my father,” answered Harold j “ and 
17 * 


202 


HAROLD. 


I see with joy, that while those descendants of heroes and 
freemen are blended indissolubly with the meeker Saxon, 
their freer laws and hardier manners are gradually sup- 
planting, or rather regenerating, our own.” 

Godwin smiled approvingly on his sou, and then his 
brow becoming serious, and the dark pupil of his blue 
eye dilating, he resumed : 

“ This is well, my son ; and hast thou thought also, 
that while thou art loitering in these galleries, amidst the 
ghosts of men in monk cowls, Siward is shadowing our 
House with his glory, and all north the Humber rings 
with his name ? Hast thou thought that all Mercia is in 
the hands of Leofric our rival, and that Algar his son, 
who ruled Wessex in my absence, left there a name so 
beloved, that had I stayed a year longer, the cry had 
been ‘Algar’ not ‘Godwin?’ — for so is the multitude 
ever 1 Now aid me, Harold, for my soul is troubled, 
and I cannot work alone ; and though I say nought to 
others, my heart received a death-blow when tears fell 
from its blood-springs on the brow of Sweyn, my first- 
born.” The old man paused, and his lip quivered. 

“ Thou, thou alone, Harold noble boy, thou alone 
didst stand by his side in the hall ; alone, alone, and I 
blessed thee in that hour over all the rest of my sons. 
Well, well ! now to earth again. Aid me, Harold. I 
open to thee my web : complete the woof when this hand 
is cold. The new tree that stands alone in the plain is 
soon nipped by the winter ; fenced round with the forest, 


HAROLD. 


208 


its youth takes shelter from its fellows.* So is it with 
a house newly founded ; it must win strength from the 
allies that it sets round its slender stem. What had 
been Godwin, son of Wolnoth, had he not married into 
the kingly house of great Canute ? It is this that gives 
my sons now the right to the loyal love of the Danes. 
The throne passed from Canute and his race, and the 
Saxons again had their hour ; and I gave, as Jephtha 
gave his daughter, my blooming Edith, to the cold bed 
of the Saxon King. Had sons sprung from that union, 
the grandson of Godwin, royal alike from Saxon and 
Dane, would reign on the throne of the isle. Fate 
ordered otherwise, and the spider must weave web anew. 
Thy brother, Tostig, has added more splendor than solid 
strength to our line, in his marriage with the daughter 
of Baldwin the Count. The foreigner helps us little in 
England. Thou, 0 Harold, must bring new props to 
the House. I would rather see thee wed to the child of 
one of our great rivals than to the daughter of kaisar, or 
outland king. Siward hath no daughter undisposed of. 
Algar, son of Leofric, hath a daughter fair as the fairest ; 
make her thy bride, that Algar may cease to be a foe. 
This alliance will render Mercia, in truth, subject to our 
principalities, since the stronger must quell the weaker. 
It doth more. Algar himself has married into the 
royalty of Wales, f Thou wilt win all those tierce tribes 

* Teignkr’s Frithiof. 

f Some of the chroniclers say that he married the daughter of 
Gryifyth, the king of North Wales, but Gryffyth certainly married 


204 


HAKOLD. 


to thy side. Their forces will gain thee the marches, 
now held so freely under Rolf the Norman, and in case 
of brief reverse, or sharp danger, their mountains will 
give refuge from all foes. This day, greeting Algar, he 
told me he meditated bestowing his daughter on Gryffyth, 
the rebel under-King of North Wales. Therefore,” con- 
tinued the old Earl, with a smile, “thou must speak in 
time, and win and woo in the same breath. No hard 
task, methinks, for Harold of the golden tongue.” 

“ Sir, and father,” replied the young Earl, whom the 
long speech addressed to him had prepared for its close, 
and whose habitual self-control saved him from disclosing 
his emotion, “ I thank you duteously, for your care foi 
my future, and hope to profit by your wisdom. 1 will 
ask the king’s leave to go to my East Anglians, and hold 
there a folkmuth, administer justice, redress grievances, 
and make thegn and ceorl content with Harold, their 
earl. But vain is peace in the realm, if there is strife in 
the house. And Aldyth, the daughter of Algar, cannot 
be house-wife to me.” 

“Why?” asked the old Earl, calmly, and surveying 
his son’s face, with those eyes so clear yet so unfathom- 
able 

“ Because, though I grant her fair, she pleases not ray 
faucy, nor would give warmth to my hearth. Because, 
as thou knowest well, Algar and I have ever been op- 


Algar’s daughter, and that double alliance could not have been 
permitted. It was probably, therefore, some more distant kins* 
woman of Gryffyth’s that was united to Algar. 


HAROLD. 


205 


posed, both in camp and in council; and I am not the 
man who can sell my love, though I may stifle my anger. 
Earl Harold needs no bride to bring spearmen to his 
back at his need ; and his lordships he will guard with 
the shield of a man, not the spindle of a woman.” 

“ Said in spite and in error,” replied the old Earl 
coolly. “ Small pain had it given thee to forgive Algal* 
old quarrels, and clasp his hand as a father-in-law — if 
thou hadst had for his daughter what the great are for* 
bidden to regard save as a folly.” 

“Is love a folly, my father?” 

“Surely, yes,” said the Earl, with some sadness — 
“ surely, yes, for those who know that life is made up of 
business and care, spun out in long years, not counted by 
the joys of an hour. Surely, yes ; thinkest thou that I 
loved my first wife, the proud sister of Canute, or that 
Edith, thy sister, loved Edward, when he placed the 
crown on her head?” 

“ My father, in Edith, my sister, our House hath sacri- 
ficed enow to selfish power.” 

“ I grant it, to selfish power,” answered the eloquent 
old man, “but not enow for England’s safety. Look to 
it, Harold ; thy years, and thy fame, and thy state, place 
thee free from my control as a father, but not till thou 
sleepest in thy cerements art thou free from that father — 
thy land! Ponder it in thine own wise mind — wiser 
already than that which speaks to it under the hood of 
grey hairs. Ponder it, and ask thyself if thy power, 
when I am dead, is not necessary to the weal of England ; 
I .— 18 


206 


HAROLD. 


and if aught that thy schemes can suggest, would so 
strengthen that power, as to find in the heart of the king- 
dom a host of friends like the Mercians; — or if there 
could be a trouble, and a bar to thy greatness, a wall in 
thy path, or a thorn in thy side, like the hate or the 
jealousy of Algar, the son of Leofric ? ” 

Thus addressed, Harold’s face, before serene and calm, 
grew overcast ; and he felt the force of his father’s words 
when appealing to his reason — not to his affections. The 
old man saw the advantage he had gained, and prudently 
forbore to press it. Rising, he drew round him his sweep- 
ing gonna lined with furs, and only when he reached the 
door, he added : — 

“The old see afar; they stand on the height of ex- 
perience, as a warder on the crown of a tower ; and I 
tell thee, Harold, that if thou let slip this golden occa - 
sion, years hence — long and many — thou wilt rue the loss 
of the hour. And that, unless Mercia, as the centre of 
the kingdom, be reconciled to thy power, thou wilt stand 
high indeed — but on the shelf of a precipice. And if, as 
I suspect, thou lovest some other, who now clouds thy 
perception, and will then check thy ambition, thou wilt 
break her heart with thy desertion, or gnaw thine own 
with regret. For love dies in possession — ambition has 
no fruition, and so lives for ever.” 

“That ambition is not mine, my father,” exclaimed 
Harold earnestly ; “ I have not thy love of power, glori- 
ous in thee, even in its extremes. I have not thy ” 

“ Seventy years ! ” interrupted the old man, concluding 


HAROLD. 


207 


the sentence. “At seventy, all men who have been great 
will speak as I do ; yet all will have known love. Thou 
not ambitious, Harold ? Thou knowest not thyself, nor 
knowest thou yet what ambition is. That which I see 
far before me as thy natural prize, I dare not, or I will 
not say. When time sets that prize within reach of thy 
spear’s point, say then, * I am not ambitious ! ’ Ponder 
and decide. ” 

And Harold pondered long, and decided not as God- 
win could have wished. For he had not the seventy 
years of his father, and the prize lay yet in the womb of 
the mountains; though the dwarf and the gnome were 
already fashioning the ore to the shape of a crown. 


CHAPTER TI. 

While Harold mused over his father’s words, Edith, 
seated on a low stool beside the Lady of England, listened 
with earnest but mournful reverence to her royal name- 
sake. 

The queen’s * closet opened like the king’s, on one 
hand to an oratory, on the other to a spacious ante-room ; 
the lower part of the walls was covered with arras, leav- 

* The title of queen is employed in these pages, as one which 
our historians have unhesitatingly given to the consorts of our 
Saxon kings ; but the usual and correct designation of Edward’* 
royal wife, in her own time, would be, Edith the Lady. 


208 


HAROLD. 


ing space for a niche that contained an image of the 
Virgin. Near the doorway to the oratory, was the stoupe 
or aspersorium for holy-water ; and in various cysts and 
crypts, in either room, were caskets containing the relics 
of saints. The purple light from the stained glass of a 
high narrow window, shaped in the Saxon arch, streamed 
rich and full over the queen’s bended head like a glory, 
and tinged her pale cheek, as with a maiden blush ; and 
she might have furnished a sweet model for early artist, 
in his dreams of St. Mary the Mother, not when, young 
and blest, she held the divine Infant in her arms, but 
when sorrow had reached even the immaculate bosom, 
and the stone had been rolled over the Holy Sepulchre. 
For beautiful the face still was, and mild beyond all 
words ; but, beyond all words also, sad in its tender re- 
signation. 

And thus said the queen to her godchild. 

“ Why dost thou hesitate and turn away ? Thinkest 
thou, poor child, in thine ignorance of life, that the world 
ever can give thee a bliss greater than the calm of the 
cloister ? Pause, and ask thyself, young as thou art, if 
all the true happiness thou hast known is not bounded 
to hope. As long as thou hopest, thou art happy.” 

Edith sighed deeply, and moved her young head in 
involuntary acquiescence. 

“And what is life to the nun, but hope ? In that hope 
she knows not the present, she lives in the future ; she 
bears ever singing the chorus of the angels, as St. Dun- 


HAROLD. 


209 


Btan heard them sing at the birth of Edgar.* That hope 
unfolds to her the heiligthum of the future. On earth 
her body, in heaven her soul 1 ” 

“And her heart, 0 Lady of England?” cried Edith, 
with a sharp pang. 

The queen paused a moment, and laid her pale hand 
kindly on Edith’s bosom. 

“Not beating, child, as thine does now, with vain 
thoughts, and worldly desires ; but calm, calm as mine. 
It is in our power,” resumed the queen, after a second 
pause, “ it is in our power to make the life within us all 
soul, so that the heart is not, or is felt not ; so that grief 
and joy have no power over us ; so that we look tranquil 
on the stormy earth, as yon image of the Virgin, whom 
we make our example, looks from the silent niche. Listen, 
my godchild and darling. 

“ I have known human state and human debasement. 
In these halls I woke Lady of England, and ere sunset, 
my husband banished me, without one mark of honor, 
without one word of comfort, to the convent of Wher- 
well ; — my father, my mother, my kin, all in exile ; and 
my tears falling fast for them, but not on a husband’s 
bosom.” 

“Ah, then, noble Edith,” said the girl, coloring with 
anger at the remembered wrong for her queen, “ ah, then, 
surely at least thy heart made itself heard.” 

“ Heard, yea, verily,” said the queen, looking up, and 


18 * 


* Ethel. De. Gen Reg. Ang. 

0 


•210 


HAROLD. 


pressing her hands ; “ heard, but the soul rebuked it 
And the soul said, ‘ Blessed are they that mourn ; ’ and 
I rejoiced at the new trial which brought me nearer to 
Him who chastens those He loves.” 

“ But thy banished kin — the valiant, the wise ; they 
who placed thy lord on the throne ? ” 

“ Was it no comfort,” answered the queen, simply, “to 
think that in the House of God my prayers for them 
would be more accepted than in the hall of kings ? Yes; 
my child, I have known the world’s honor, and the world’s 
disgrace, and I have schooled my heart to be calm in 
both.” 

“Ah, thou art above human strength, Queen and Saint,” 
exclaimed Edith ; “and I have heard it said of thee, that 
as thou art now, thou wert from thine earliest years ; * 
ever the sweet, the calm, the holy — ever less on earth 
than in heaven.” 

Something there was in the queen’s eyes, as she raised 
them towards Edith at this burst of enthusiasm, that gave 
for a moment, to a face otherwise so dissimilar, the like- 
ness to her father ; something, in that large pupil, of the 
impenetrable unrevealing depth of a nature close and 
secret in self-control. And a more acute observer than 
Edith might long have been perplexed and haunted with 
that look, wondering, if, indeed, under the divine and 
spiritual composure, lurked the mystery of human passion. 

“My child,” said the queen, with the faintest smilo 


* Ailred, De Vit. Edward Confess. 


Harold. 


211 


apon her lips, and drawing Edith towards her, “there 
are moments, when all that breathe the breath of life 
feel, or have felt, alike. In my vain youth I read, I mused, 
I pondered, but over worldly lore ; and what men called 
the sanctity of virtue, was, perhaps, but the silence of 
thought. Now I have put aside those early and childish 
dreams and shadows, remembering them not, save (here 
the smile grew more pronounced) to puzzle some poor 
school-boy with the knots and riddles of the sharp gram- 
marian : * but not to speak of myself have I sent for 
thee. Edith, again and again, solemnly and sincerely, I 
pray thee to obey the wish of ray lord the king. And 
now, while yet in all the bloom of thought, as of youth, 
while thou hast no memory save the child’s, enter on the 
Realm of Peace.” 

“ I cannot, I dare not, I cannot — ah, ask me not,” said 
poor Edith, covering her face with her hands. 

Those hands the queen gently withdrew ; and looking 
steadfastly in the changeful and half-averted face, she 
said mournfully, “ Is it so, my godchild ? and is thy heart 
set on the hopes of earth — thy dreams on the love of 
man ? ” 

“ Nay,” answered Edith, equivocating ; “ but I have 
promised not to take the veil.” 

“Promised to Hilda!” 

1 Hilda,” exclaimed Edith readily, “ would never con- 
sent to it. Thou knowest her strong nature, her distaste 
to — to ” 


* Ingulfus. 


212 


HAROLD. 


“ The laws of our holy Church — Ido; and for that 
reason it is, mainly, that I join with the King in seeking 
to abstract thee from her influence : but it is not Hilda 
that thou hast promised ? ” 

Edith hung her head. 

“Is it to woman or to man ?” 

Before Edith could answer, the door from the ante* 
room opened gently, but without the usual ceremony, 
and Harold entered. His quick, quiet eye, embraced 
both forms, and curbed Edith’s young impulse, which 
made her start from her seat, and advance joyously to- 
wards him as a protector. 

“ Fair day to thee, my sister,” said the earl, advancing ; 
“ and pardon, if I break thus rudely on thy leisure ; for 
few are the moments when beggar and Benedictine leave 
thee free to receive thy brother.” 

“Dost thou reproach me, Harold?” 

“ No, Heaven forfend ! ” replied the earl, cordially, and 
with a look at once of pity and admiration ; “ for thou 
art one of the few, in this court of simulators, sincere 
and true ; and it pleases thee to serve the Divine Power 
in thy way, as it pleases me to serve Him in mine.” 

“ Thine, Harold ? ” said the queen, shaking her head, 
bat with a look of some human pride and fondness in her 
fair face. 

“ Mine : as I learned it from thee when I was thy pupil, 
Edith ; when to those studies in which thou didst precede 
me, thou first didst lure me from sport and pastime ; and 
from thee I learned to glow over the deeds of Greek and 


HAROLD. 


213 


Roman, and say, ‘ They lived and died as men ; like them 
may I live and die ! ’ ” 

“Oh, true — too true!” said the queen, with a sigh; 
“ and I am to blame grievously that I did so pervert to 
earth a mind that might otherwise have learned holier 
examples; — nay, smile not with' that hr jglity lip, my 
brother ; for, believe me — yea, believe me — there is more 
true valor in the life of one patient martyr than in the 
victories of Caesar, or even the defeat of Brutus.” 

“ It may be so,” replied the earl, “ but out of the same 
oak we carve the spear and the cross; and those not 
worthy to hold the one, may yet not guiltily wield the 
other. Each to his path of life — and mine is chosen.” 
Then, changing his voice, with some abruptness, he said: 
“But what hast thou been saying to thy fair godchild, 
that her cheek is pale, and her eyelids seem so heavy ? 
Edith, Edith, my sister, beware how thou shapest the lot 
of the martyr without the peace of the saint. Had 
Algive the nun been wedded to Sweyn our brother, Sweyn 
were not wending, barefooted and forlorn, to lay the 
wrecks of desolated life at the Holy Tomb ” 

“ Harold, Harold ! ” faltered the queen, much struck 
with his words. 

“But,” the earl continued — and something of the 
pathos which belongs to deep emotion vibrated in the 
eloquent voice, accustomed to command and persuade — 
“we strip not the green leaves for our yule-hearths — 
we gather them up when dry and sere. Leave youth 
ou the bough— let the bird sing to it — let it play free 


214 


HAROLD. 


in the airs of iicaven. Smoke comes from the branch 
which, cut in the sap, is cast upon the fire, and regret 
from the heart which is severed from the world while the 
world is in its May.” 

The queen paced slowly, but in evident agitation, to 
and fro the room, and her hands clasped convulsively the 
rosary round her neck ; then, after a pause of thought, 
she motioned to Edith, and, pointing to the oratory, said, 
with forced composure, “ Enter there, and there kneel ; 
commune with thyself, and be still. Ask for a sign from 
above — pray for the grace within. Go ; I would speak 
alone with Harold.” 

Edith crossed her arms on her bosom meekly, and 
passed into the oratory. The queen watched her for a 
few moments, tenderly, as the slight, child-like form 
bent before the sacred symbol. Then she closed the 
door gently, and coming with a quick step to Harold, 
said, in a low, but clear voice, “ Dost thou love the 
maiden ? ” 

“ Sister,” answered the earl, sadly, “ I love her as a 
man should love woman — more than my life, but less 
than the ends life lives for.” 

“ Oh, world, world, world 1 ” cried the queen, passion- 
jtely, “ not even to thine own objects art thou true. O 
jrorld ! 0 world ! thou desirest happiness below, and at 
every turn, with every vanity, thou tramplest happiness 
uuder foot! Yes, yes; they said to me, ‘For the sake 
of our greatness, thou shalt wed King Edward. ? And I 
live in the eyes that loathe me — and — and ” The 


HAROLT 


215 


queen, as if conscience-stricken, paused aghast, kissed 
devoutly the relic suspended to her rosary, and continued, 
with such calmness, that it seemed as if two women were 
blent in one, so startling was the contrast. “And I have 
had my reward, but not from the world ! Even so, Harold 
the Earl, and Earl’s son, thou lovest yon fair child, and 
she thee; and ye might be happy, if happiness were 
earth’s end ; but, though high-born, and of fair temporal 
possessions, she brings thee not lands broad enough for 
her dowry, nor troops of kindred to swell thy lithsmen, 
and she is not a mark-stone in thy march to ambition : 
and so thou lovest her as man loves woman — ‘less than 
the ends life lives for ! ’ ” 

“Sister,” said Harold, “thou speakest as I love to 
hear thee speak — as my bright-eyed, rose-lipped sister 
spoke in the days of old ; thou speakest as a woman with a 
warm heart, and not as the mummy in the stiff cerements 
of priestly form ; and if thou art with me, and thou wilt 
give me countenance, I will marry thy godchild, and save 
her alike from the dire superstitions of Hilda, and the 
grave of the abhorrent convent.” 

“ But my father — my father ! ” cried the queen ; “ who 
ever bended that soul of steel?” 

“ It is not my father I fear ; it is thee and thy monks. 
Eorgettest thou that Edith and I are within the six- 
banned degrees of the Church?” 

“ True, most true,” said the queen, with a look of 
great terror ; “ I had forgotten. Avaunt, the very 


216 


HAROLD. 


thought ! Pray — fast — banish it — my poor, poor 
brother ! ” and she kissed his brow. 

“ So, there fades the woman, and the mummy speaks 
again ! ” said Harold, bitterly. “ Be it so ; I bow to my 
doom. Well, there may be a time, when Nature, on the 
throne of England, shall prevail over Priestcraft ; and, 
in guerdon for all my services, I will then ask a king who 
hath blood in his veins, to win me the Pope’s pardon and 
benison. Leave me that hope, my sister, and leave thy 
godchild on the shores of the living world.” 

The queen m-ade no answer ; and Harold, auguring ill 
from her silence, moved on and opened the door of the 
oratory. But the image that there met him, that figure 
still kneeling, those eyes, so earnest in the tears that 
streamed from them fast and unheeded, fixed on the holy 
rood — awed his step and checked his voice. Nor till the 
girl had risen, did he break silence ; then he said, gently, 
“ My sister will press thee no more, Edith — ” 

“I say not that!” exclaimed the queen. 

“ Or if she doth, remember thy plighted promise under 
the wide cope of blue heaven, the old ro** least holy 
temple of our common Father ! ” 

With these words he lef* the ro<«u. 


HAROLD. 


217 


CHAPTER VII. 

Harold passed into the queen’s ante-chamber. Hero 
the attendance was small and select compared with the 
crowds which we shall see presently in the ante-room to 
the king’s closet : for here came chiefly the more learned 
ecclesiastics, attracted instinctively by the queen’s own 
mental culture, and few indeed were they at that day 
(perhaps the most illiterate known in England since the 
death of Alfred ; *) and here came not the tribe of im- 
postors, and the relic-venders, whom the infantine sim- 
plicity and lavish waste of the Confessor attracted. Some 
four or five priests and monks, some lonely widow, some 
orphan child, humble worth, or unprotected sorrow, made 
the noiseless levee of the sweet sad queen. 

The groups turned, with patient eyes, towards the earl 
as he emerged from that chamber, which it was rare in- 
deed to quit unconsoled, and marvelled at the flush in 
his cheek, and the disquiet on his brow ; but Harold was 
dear to the clients of his sister ; for, despite his supposed 
indifference to the mere priestly virtues (if virtues we call 

* The clergy (says Malmesbury), contented with a very s’ight 
share of leaning could scarcely stammer out the words of the 
sacraments; and a person who understood grammar was an object 
of wonder and astonishment. Other authorities likely to be im- 
partial, speak quite as strongly as to the prevalent ignorance of 
the time. 

1 . — 19 


218 


HAROLD. 


them) of the decrepit time, his intellect was respected by 
yon learned ecclesiastics ; and his character, as the foe 
of all injustice, and the fosterer of all that were desolate, 
was known to yon pale-eyed widow, and yon trembling 
orphan. 

In the atmosphere of that quiet assembly, the ea- 
seemed to recover his kindly temperament, and he paused 
to address a friendly or a soothing word to each ; so that 
when he vanished, the hearts there felt more light ; and 
the silence, hushed before his entrance, was broken by 
many whispers in praise of the good earl. 

Descending a staircase without the walls — as even in 
royal halls the principal staircases were then — Harold 
gained a wide court, in which loitered several house 
carles,* and attendants, whether of the king or the 
visitors ; and reaching the entrance of the palace, took 
his way towards the king’s rooms, which lay near, and 
round, what is now called “The Painted Chamber,” 
then used as a bed-room by Edward on state occasions. 

And now he entered the ante-chamber of his royal 
brother-in-law. Crowded it was, but rather seemed it 
the hall of a convent than the ante-room of a king. 
Monks, pilgrims, priests, met his eyes in every nook ; and 
not there did the earl pause to practise the arts of popular 

* House carles in the royal court were the body-guard, mostly, 
if not all, of Danish origin. They appear to have been first formed, 
ar at least employed, in that capacity by Canute. With the great 
earls, the house carles probably exercised the same functions, but 
in the ordinary acceptation of the word in families of lower rank, 
house carle was a domestic servant. 


HAROLD. 


‘219 


favor. Passing erect through the midst, he beckoned 
forth the officer, in attendance at the extreme end, who, 
after an interchange of whispers, ushered him into the 
royal presence. The monks and the priests, gazing to- 
wards the door which had closed on his stately form, said 
to each other : — 

“The king’s Norman favorites at least honored the 
Church.” 

“ That is true,” said an abbot ; “ and an’ it were not 
for two things, I should love the Norman better than the 
Saxon.” 

“ What are they, my father ?” asked an aspiring young 
monk. 

“ Inprinis ,” quoth the abbot, proud of the one Latin 
word he thought he knew, but that, as we see, was an 
error ; “they cannot speak so as to be understood, and I 
fear me much they incline to mere carnal learning.” 

Here there was a sanctified groan: — 

“ Count William himself spoke to me in Latin 1 ” con- 
tinued the abbot, raising his eyebrows. 

“Did he? — Wonderful!” exclaimed several voices. 
“And what did you answer, holy father?” 

“Marry,” said the abbot, solemnly, “I replied, ‘ In- 
prinis ” 

“ Good ! ” said the young monk, with a look of pro- 
found admiration. 

“'Whereat the good Count looked puzzled — as I meant 
him to be : — a heinous fault, and one intolerant to the 
clergy, that love of profane tongues ! And the next 


220 


HAROLD. 


thing against your Norman is (added the abbot, with a 
sly wink), that he is a close man, who loves not his 
stoup : now, I say, that a priest never had more hold 
over a sinner than when he makes the sinner open his 
heart to him.” 

“ That’s clear ! ” said a fat priest, with a lubricate and 
shining nose. 

“And how,” pursued the abbot triumphantly, “can a 
sinner open his heavy heart until you have given him 
something to lighten it ? Oh, many and many a wretched 
man have I comforted spiritually over a flagon of stout 
ale ! and many a good legacy to the Church hath come 
out of a friendly wassail between watchful shepherd and 
strayed sheep ! But what hast thou there ? ” resumed 
the abbot, turning to a man, clad in the lay garb of a 
burgess of London, who had just entered the room, 
followed by a youth bearing what seemed a coffer, covered 
with a fine linen cloth. 

“ Holy father ! ” said the burgess, wiping his forehead, 
“it is a treasure so great, that I trow Hugoline, the 
king’s treasurer, will scowl at me for a year to come, for 
he likes to keep his own grip on the king’s gold 1” 

At this indiscreet observation, the abbot, the monks, 
and all the priestly by-standers, looked grim and gloomy, 
for each had his own special design upon the peace of 
poor Hugoline, the treasurer, and liked not to see him 
the prey of a layman. 

“ Inprinis /” quoth the abbot, puffing out the word 
with great scorn ; “thinkest thou, son of Mammon, that 


HAROLD. 


221 


our good king sets his pious heart on gewgaws, and 
gems, and such vanities ? Thou shouldst take the goods 
to Count Baldwin of Flanders ; or Tostig, the proud 
earl’s proud son.” 

“Marry!” said the cheapman, with a smile; “my 
treasure will find small price with Baldwin the scoffer, 
and Tostig the vain ! Nor need ye look at me so sternly, 
my fathers ; but rather vie with each other who shall win 
this wonder of wonders for his own convent ; know, in a 
word, that it is the right thumb of St. Jude, which a 
worthy man bought at Home for me, for 3,000 lb. weight 
of silver ; and I ask but 500 lb. over the purchase for my 
pains and my fee.”* 

“ Humph ! ” said the abbot. 

“Humph !” said the aspiring young monk : the rest 
gathered wistfully round the linen cloth. 

A fiery exclamation of wrath and disdain was here 
heard : and all turning, saw a tall, fierce-looking thegn, 
who had found his way into that group, like a hawk in a 
rookery. 

“Dost thou tell me, knave,” quoth the thegn, in a 
dialect that bespoke him a Dane by origin, with the 
broad burr still retained in the north; “Dost thou tell 
me that the king will waste his gold on such fooleries, 
while the fort built by Canute at the flood of the Humber 

» This was cheap, for Agelnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury, gave 
the Pope 6,000 lb. weight of silver for the arm of St. Augustine.— 
Malmesbury. 

19* 


222 


HAROLD. 


is ail fallen into ruin, without a man in steel jacket to 
keep watch on the war fleets of Swede and Norwegian ? ” 
“ Worshipful minister, ” replied the cheapman, with 
some slight irony in his tone ; “ these reverend fathers 
will tell thee that the thumb of St. Jude is far better aid 
against Swede and Norwegian than forts of stone and 
jackets of steel : nathless, if thou wantest jackets of steel, 
I have some to sell at a fair price, of the last fashion, 
and helms with long nose-pieces, as are worn by the 
Normans.” 

“ The thumb of a withered old saint,” cried the Dane, 
not heeding the last words, “ more defence at the mouth 
of the Humber than crenellated castles, and mailed men ! ” 
“ Surely, naught son,” said the abbot, looking shocked, 
and taking part with the cheapman. “ Dost thou not 
remember that, in the pious and famous council of 1014, 
it was decreed to put aside all weapons of flesh against 
thy heathen countrymen, and depend alone on St. Michael 
to fight for us ? Thinkest thou that the saint would ever 
suffer his holy thumb to fall into the hands of the Gen- 
tiles ? — never ! Go to, thou art not fit to have conduct 
of the king’s wars. Go to, and repent, my son, or the 
king shall hear of it.” 

“Ah, wolf in sheep’s clothing!” muttered the Dan?, 
turning on his heel ; “if thy monastery were but built on 
the other side of the Humber ! ” 

The cheapman heard him, and smiled. While such 
the scene in the ante-room, we follow Harold into the 
king’s presence. 


HAROLD. 


223 


On entering, he found there a man in the prime or life 
and, though richly clad, in embroidered gonna, and with 
gilt ateghar at his side, still with the loose robe, the 
long moustache, and the skin of the throat and right 
hand punctured with characters and devices, which proved 

his adherence to the fashions of the Saxon.* And 

• 

Harold’s eye sparkled, for in this guest he recognized the 
father of Aldyth, Earl Algar, son of Leofric. The two 
nobles exchanged grave salutations, and each eyed the 
other wistfully. 

The contrast between the two was striking. The 
Danish race were men generally of larger frame and 
grander mould than the Saxon ; f and though in all else, 
as to exterior, Harold was eminently Saxon, yet in 
common with his brothers, he took from the mother’s 
side the lofty air and iron frame of the old kings of the 
sea. But Algar, below the middle height, though well 
set, was slight in comparison with Harold. His strength 
tvas that which men often take rather from the nerve than 
the muscle : a strength that belongs to quick tempers and 
restless energies. His light-blue eye singularly vivid and 

* William of Malmesbury says, that the English, at the time of 
the Conquest, loaded their arms with gold bracelets, and adorned 
the 1 skins with punctured designs, i. e. a sort of tattooing. lie 
eay>* that they then wore short garments, reaching to the mid-knee : 
but that was a Norman fashion, and the loose robes assigned in the 
text to Algar, were the old Saxon fashion, which made but little 
distinjtion between the dress of women and that of men. 

f And in England, to this day. the descendants of the Anglo- 
Danes, in Cumberland and Yorkshire, are still a taller and bonier 
race than those of the Anglo-Saxons, as in Surrey and Sussex. 


224 


HAROLD. 


glittering ; his quivering lip ; the veins swelling at each 
emotion, on the fair white temples ; the long yellow hair, 
bright as gold, and resisting in its easy curls, all attempts 
to curb it into the smooth flow most in fashion ; the 
nervous movements of the gesture ; the somewhat sharp 
and hasty tones of the voice ; all opposed, as much as if 
the two men were of different races, the steady deep eyes 
of Harold, his composed mien, sweet and majestic, his 
decorous locks parted on the king-like front, with their 
large single curl, where they touched the shoulder. In- 
telligence and will were apparent in both the men ; but 
the intelligence of one was acute and rapid, that of the 
other profound and steadfast ; the will of one broke in 
flashes of lightning, that of the other was calm as the 
summer sun at noon. 

“Thou art welcome, Harold,” said the king, with less 
than his usual listlessness, and with a look of relief, as 
the earl approached him. 

“Our good Algar comes to us with a suit well worthy 
consideration, though pressed somewhat hotly, and 
evincing too great a desire for goods worldly ; contrast- 
ing in this his most laudable father, our well-beloved 
Leofric, who spends his substance in endowing monas- 
teries, and dispensing alms ; wherefor he shall receive a 
hundred-fold in the treasure-house above. ” 

“ A good interest, doubtless, my lord the king,” said 
Algar, quickly, “ but one that is not paid to his heirs ; 
and the more need, if my father (whom I blame not for 
doing as he lists with his own) gives all he hath to the. 


HAROLD. 


225 


monks — the more need, I say, to take care that his sou 
shall be enabled to follow his example. As it is, most 
noble king, I fear me that Algar, son of Leofric, will have 
nothing to give. In brief, Earl Harold, 7 ’ continued 
Algar, turning to his fellow thegn — “in brief, thus 
stands the matter. When our lord the king was first 
graciously pleased to consent to rule in England, the two 
chiefs who most assured his throne were thy father and 
mine : often foes, they laid aside feud and jealousy for the 
sake of the Saxon line. Now, since then, thy father hath 
strung earldom to earldom, like links in a coat-mail. 
And, save Northumbria and Mercia, well-nigh all Eng- 
land falls to him and his sons ; whereas my father remains 
what he was, and my father’s son stands landless and 
penceless. In thine absence the king was graciously 
pleased to bestow on me thy father’s earldom ; men say 
that I ruled it well. Thy father returns, and though 
(here Algar’s eyes shot fire, and his hand involuntarily 
rested on his ateghar), I could have held it, methinks, by 
the strong hand, I gave it up at my father’s prayer, and 
the king’s hest, with a free heart. Now, therefore, I 
come to my lord, and I ask, ‘ What lands and what lord- 
ships canst thou spare in broad England to Algar, once 
Earl of Wessex, and son to the Leofric whose hand 
smoothed the way to thy throne ? ’ My lord the king is 
pleased to preach to me contempt of the world ; thou 
dost not despise the world, Earl of the East Angles, — 
what sayest thou to the heir of Leofric ? ” 

19* P 


226 


HAROLD. 


“ That thy suit is just,” answered Harold, calmly, “ but 
urged with small reverence.” 

Earl Algar bounded like a stag that the arrow hath 
startled. 

“ It becomes thee, who hast backed thy suits with war- 
ships and mail, to talk of reverence, and rebuke one 
whose fathers reigned over earldoms,* when thine were 
no doubt, ceorls at the plough. But for Edric’s Streone, 
the traitor and low-born, what had been Walnoth, thy 
grand sire ?” 

So rude and home an assault in the presence of the 
king, who, though personally he loved Harold in his 
lukewarm way, yet, like all weak men, was not displeased 
to see the strong split their strength against each other, 
brought the blood into Harold’s cheek ; but he answered 
calmly : — 

“ We live in a land, son of Leofric, in which birth, 
though not disesteemed, gives of itself no power in coun- 
cil or camp. We belong to a land where men are valued 

*Very few of the greater Saxon nobles could pretend to a 
lengthened succession in their demesnes. The wars with the Danes, 
the many revolutions which threw new families uppermost, the con- 
fiscations and banishments, and the invariable rule of rejecting the 
heir, if not of mature years at his father’s death, caused rapid 
changes of dynasty in the several earldoms ; but the famity of 
Leofric had just claims to a very rare antiquity in their Mercian 
lordship. Leofric was the sixth earl of Chester and Coventry, in 
lineal descent from his namesake Leofric I. ; he extended the 
supremacy of his hereditary lordship over all Mercia. See Duo- 
dale, Monast.. vol. iii. p. 102 ; and Palgrave’s Commonwealth 
Proofs and Illustrations, p. 291. 


HAROLD. 


227 


for what they are,; not for what their dead ancestors 
might have been. So has it been for ages in Saxon Eng* 
land, where my fathers, through Godwin, as thou sayest, 
might have been ceorls ; and so, I have heard, it is in the 
land of the martial Danes, where my fathers, through 
Githa, reigned on the thrones of the North. ” 

“ Thou dost well,” said Algar, gnawing his lip, “ to 
shelter thyself on the spindle side, but we Saxons of pure 
descent think little of your kings of the North, pirates 
and idolators, and eaters of horse-flesh ; but enjoy what 
thou hast, and let Algar have his due.” 

“It is for the king, not his servant, to answer the 
prayer of Algar,” said Harold, withdrawing to the farther 
end of the room. 

Algar’s eye followed him, and observing that the king 
was fast sinking into one of the fits of religious reverie 
in which he sought to be inspired with a decision, when- 
ever his mind was perplexed, he moved with a light step 
to Harold, put his hand on his shoulder, and whispered, — 

“We do ill to quarrel with each other — I repent me 
of hot words : — enough. Thy father is a wise man, and 
sees far — thy father would have us friends. Be it so 
Hearken : my daughter Aldyth is esteemed not the least 
fair of the maidens in England ; I will give her to thee 
as thy wife, and as thy morgen gift, thou shalt win for 
me from the king the earldom forfeited by thy brother 
Sweyn, now parcelled out among sub-earls and thegns — 
easv enow to control. By the shrine of St, Alban, dost 
thou hesitate, man ?” 


228 


HAROLD. 


“ No, not an instant,” said Harold, *tung to the quick 
“Not, couldst thou offer me all Mercia as her dower, 
would I wed the daughter of Algar ; and bend my knee 
as a son to a wife’s father, to the man who despises my 
lineage, while he truckles to my power.” 

Algar’s face grew convulsed with rage ; but without 
saying a word to the earl he strode back to Edward, who 
now with vacant eyes looked up from the rosary over 
which he had been bending, and said abruptly — 

“ My lord the king, I have spoken as I think it be- 
comes a man who knows his own claims, and believes in 
the gratitude of princes. Three days will I tarry in 
London for your gracious answer ; on the fourth, I de- 
part. May the saints guard your throne, and bring 
around it its best defence, the thegn-born satraps whose 
fathers fought with Alfred and Athelstan. All went 
well with merrie England till the hoof of the Dane king 
broke the soil, and mushrooms sprung up where the oak- 
trees fell.” 

When the son of Leofric had left the chamber, the 
king rose wearily, and said in Norman-French, to which 
language he always yearningly returned, when with those 
who could speak it, — 

“ Beau frlre and bien aimt, in what trifles must a king 
pass his life ! And, all this while, matters grave and 
urgent demand me. Know that Eadmer, the cheapman, 
waits without, and hath brought me, dear and good man, 
the thumb of St. Jude ! What thought of delight ! And 

i 


HAROLD. 


229 


this unmannerly son of strife, with his jay’s voice and 
wolfs eyes, screaming at me for earldoms ! — oh the folly 
of man ! Naught, naught, very naught 1 ” 

“ Sir and king,” said Harold, “ it ill becomes me to 
arraign your pious desires, but these relics are of vast 
cost ; our coasts are ill defended, and the Dane yet lays 
claim to your kingdom. Three thousand pounds of silver 
and more does it need to repair even the old wall of 
London and Southweorc.” 

“Three thousand pounds ! ” cried theming ; “thou art 
mad, Harold ! I have scarce twice that sura in the trea- 
sury ; and besides the thumb of St. Jude, I daily expect 
the tooth of St. Remigius — the tooth of St. Remigius 1” 
Harold sighed. “Vex not yourself, my lord ; I will see 
to the defences of London. For, thanks to your grace, 
my revenues are large, while my wants are simple. 1 
seek you now to pray your leave to visit my earldom. 
My lithsmen murmur at my absence, and grievances, many 
and sore, have arisen in my exile.” 

The king stared in terror ; and his look was that of a 
child when about to be left in the dark. 

“Nay, nay; I cannot spare thee, beau frlre. Thou 
curbest all these stiff thegns — thou leavest me time for 
the devout ; moreover thy father, thy father, I will not 
be left to thy father ! I love him not 1 ” 

“My father!” said Harold, mournfully, “returns to 
his own earldom ; and of all our House, you will have but 
the mild face of your queen by your side ! ” 

I .— 20 


230 


HAROLD. 


The king s lip writhed at that hinted rebuke, or implied 
consolation. 

“ Edith, the queen,” he said, after a slight pause, “ is 
oious and good ; and she hath never gainsaid my will, 
and she hath set before her as a model the chaste Susan- 
nah, as I, unworthy man, from youth upward, have walked 
in the pure steps of Joseph.* But,” added the king, with 
a vouch of human feeling in his voice, “eanst thou not 
conceive, Harold, thou who art a warrior, what it would 
be to see ever before thee the face of thy deadliest foe — 
the one against whom all thy struggles of life and death 
had turned into memories of hyssop and gall ? ” 

“ My sister I” exclaimed Harold, in indignant amaze, 
“ my sister thy deadliest foe 1 She who never once mur- 
mured at neglect, disgrace — she whose youth hath been 
consumed in prayers for thee and thy realm — my sister! 

0 king, I dre^m!” 

“ Thou dreamest not, carnal man,” said the king, 
peevishly. “ Dreams are the gifts of the saints, and are 
not granted to such as thou ! Dost thou think that, in 
the prime of my manhood, I could have youth and beauty 
forced on my sight, and hear man’s law and man’s voice 
say, ‘They are thine, and. thine only,’ and not feel that 
war was brought to my hearth, and a snare set on my 
bed, and that the fiend had set watch on my soul ? Yerily, 

1 tell thee, man of battle, that thou hast known no strife 


* Ailred, de Vit. Edw. 


Harold. 


231 


as awful as mine, and achieved no victory as bard and as 
holy. And now, when my beard is silver, and the Adam 
of old is expelled at the precincts of death ; now, thinkest 
thou, that I can be reminded of the strife and temptation 
of yore, without bitterness and shame ; when days were 
spent in fasting, and nights in fierce prayer; and in the 
face of woman I saw the devices of Satan ? ” 

Ed ward colored as he spoke, and his voice trembled 
with the accents of what seemed hate Harold gazed on 
him mutely, and felt that at last he had won the secret 
that had ever perplexed him, and that in seeking to be 
above the humanity of love, the would-be saint had in- 
deed turned love into the hues of hate — a thought of 
anguish and a memory of pain. 

The king recovered himself in a few moments, and said, 
with some dignity, “But God and his saints alone should 
know the secrets of the household. What I have said 
was wrung from me. Bury it in thy heart. Leave me, 
then, Harold, sith so it must me. Put thine earldom in 
order, attend to the monasteries and the poor, and return 
soon. As for Algar, what sayest thou ? ” 

“ I fear me,” answered the large-souled Harold, with 
a victorious effort of justice over resentment, “ that if 
you reject his suit, you will drive him into some perilous 
extremes. Despite his rash and pround spirit, he is brave 
against foes, and beloved by the ceorls, who oft like best 
the frank and hasty spirit. Wherefore some power and 
lordship it were wise to give, without dispossessing others, 


232 


HAROLD. 


and not more wise than due, for his father served you 
well.” 

“And hath endowed more houses of God than any earl 
in the kingdom. But Algar is no Leofric. We will con- 
sider your words and heed them. Bless you, beau frbre ! 
and send in the cheapman. The thumb of St. Jude ! 
What a gift to my new church of St. Peter ! The thumb 
of St. Jude ! — Non nobis gloria! Sancta Maria! The 
thumb of St. Jude 1 ” 


BOOK FIFTH. 


DEATH AND LOVE. 


CHAPTER I. 

Harold, without waiting once more to see Edith, nor 
even taking leave of his father, repaired to Dunwich,* 
the capital of his earldom. In his absence, the king 
wholly forgot Algar and his suit; and in the meanwhile 
the only lordships at his disposal, Stigand, the grasping 
bishop, got from him without an effort. In much wrath, 
Earl Algar, on the fourth day, assembling all the loose 
men-at-arms he could find around the metropolis, and at 
the head of a numerous disorderly band, took his way 
into Wales, with his young daughter Aldyth, to whom 
the crown of a Welch king was perhaps some comfort 
for the loss of the fair earl ; though the rumor ran that 
she had long since lost her heart to her father’s foe. 

Edith, after a long homily from the king, returned to 
Hilda ; nor did her godmother renew the subject of the 

* Dunwich, now swallowed up by the sea. — Hostile element to 
the house of Godwin ! 

20 * 


(233) 


234 


HAROLD. 


convent. All she said on parting was, “Even in youth 
the silver cord may be loosened, and the golden bowl 
may be broken ; and rather perhaps in youth than in age 
when the heart has grown hard, wilt thou recall with a 
sigh my counsels ” 

Godwin had departed to Wales; ali his sons were at 
their several lordships ; Edward was left alone to his 
monks and relic-venders. And so months passed. 

Now it was the custom with the old kings of England 
to hold state and wear their crowns thrice a-year, — at 
Christmas, at Easter, and at Whitsuntide ; and in those 
times their nobles came round them, and there was much 
feasting and great pomp. 

So, in the Easter month of the year of our Lord, 1053, 
King Edward kept his court at Windshore,* and Earl 
Godwin and his sons, and many others of high degree, 
left their homes to do honor to the king. And Earl 
Godwin came first to his house in London — near the 
Tower Palatine, in what is now called the Fleet — and 
Harold the Earl, and Tostig, and Leofwine, and Gurth, 
were to meet him there, and go thence with the full state 
of their sub-thegns, and cnehts, and house-carles, their 
falcons, and their hounds, as became men of such rank, 
to the court of King Edward. 

Earl Godwin sate with his wife, Githa, in a room out 
of the hall, which looked on the Thames — awaiting 
Harold, who was expected to arrive ere nightfall. Gurth 


* Windsor. 


HAROLD. 


235 


had ridden forth to meet his brother, and Leofwine and 
Tostig had gone over to Southwark, to try their band- 
dogs on the great bear, which had been brought from the 
North a few days before, and was said to have hugged 
many good hounds to death, and a large train of tkegns 
and house-carles had gone with them to see the sport ; 
so that the old Earl and his lady the Dane sate alone. 
And there was a cloud upon Earl Godwin’s large fore- 
head, and he sate by the fire, spreading his hands before 
it, and looking thoughtfully on the flame, as it broke 
through the smoke which burst out into the cover, or hole 
in the roof. And in that large house there were no less 
than three “covers,” or rooms, wherein fires could be lit 
in the centre of the floor; and the rafters above were 
blackened with the smoke ; and in those good old days, 
ere chimneys, if existing, were much in use, “poses, and 
rheumatisms, and catarrhs,” were unknown — so whole- 
some and healthful was the smoke. Earl Godwin’s 
favorite hound, old, like himself, lay at his feet, dream- 
ing, for it whined and was restless. And the earl’s old 
hawk, with its feathers all stiff and sparse, perched on 
the dossel of the earl’s chair; and the floor was pranked 
with rushes and sweet herbs — the first of the spring ; 
and Githa’s feet were on her stool, and she leaned her 
proud face on the small hand which proved her descent 
from the Dane, and rocked herself to and fro, and thought 
of her son Woluoth in the court of the Norman. 

“ Githa,” at last said the earl, “thou hast been to me 
a good wife and a true, and thou hast borne me tall and 


236 


HAROLD. 


bold sons, some of whom have caused us sorrow, and 
some joy ; and in sorrow and in joy we have but drawn 
closer to each other. Yet when we wed, thou wert in 
thy first youth, and the best part of my years was fled ; 
and thou wert a Dane, and I a Saxon ; and thou a king’s 
niece, and now a king’s sister, and I but tracing two 
descents to thegn’s rank.” 

Moved and marvelling at this touch of sentiment in 
the calm earl, in whom indeed such sentiment was rare, 
Githa roused herself from her musings, and said simply 
and anxiously — 

“ I fear my lord is not well, that he speaks thus to 
Githa ! ” 

The earl smiled faintly. 

“ Thou art right with thy woman’s wit, wife. And for 
the last few weeks, though I said it not to alarm thee, I 
have had strange noises in my ears, and a surge, as of 
blood to the temples.” 

“ 0 Godwin ! dear spouse,” said Githa, tenderly, “ and 
I was blind to the cause, but wondered why there was 
some change in thy manner ! But I will go to Hilda to- 
morrow ; she hath charms against all disease.” 

“Leave Hilda in peace, to give her charms to the 
young ! age defies Wigh and Wicca. Now hearken to 
me. I feel that my thread is nigh spent, and, as Hilda 
would say, my Fylgia forewarns me that we are about to 
part. Silence, I say, and hear me. I have done proud 
things in my day ; I have made kings and built thrones, 
and I stand higher in England than ever thegn or earl 


HAROLD. 


231 


stood before. I would not, Githa, that the tree of my 
house, planted in the storm, and watered with lavish 
blood, should wither away.” 

The old earl paused, and Githa said, loftily — 

11 Fear not that thy name will pass from the earth, o** 
thy race from power. For fame has been wrought by thy 
hands, and sons have been born to thy embrace ; and the 
boughs of the tree thou hast planted shall live in the sun- 
light when we its roots, 0 my husband, are buried in the 
earth.” 

“ Githa,” replied the earl, “thou speakest as the daugh- 
ter of kings and the mother of men ; but listen to me, 
for my soul is heavy. Of these our sons, our first-born, 
alas ! is a wanderer and outcast — Sweyn, once the beau- 
tiful and brave ; and Wolnoth, thy darling, is a guest in 
the court of the Norman our foe. Of the rest, Gurth is 
so mild and so calm, that I predict without fear that he 
will be a warrior of fame, for the mildest in hall are ever 
the boldest in field, but Gurth hath not the deep wit of 
these tangled times ; and Leofwine is too light, and 
Tostig too fierce. So wife mine, of these our six sons, 
Harold alone, dauntless as Tostig, mild as Gurth, hath 
his father’s thoughtful brain. And, if the king remains 
as aloof as now from his royal kinsman, Edward the 
Atheling, who” — the earl hesitated and looked round^- 
“ who so near to the throne when I am no more, as Ha- 
rold, the joy of the ceorls, and the pride of the thegns ? 

he whose tongue never falters in the Witan, and whose 

arm never yet hath known defeat in the field?” 


238 


HAROLD. 


Githa’s heart swelled, and her cheek grew flushed. 

“ But what I fear the most,” resumed the earl, “ is, 
not the enemy without, but the jealousy within. By the 
side of Harold stands Tostig, rapacious to grasp, but 
impotent to hold — able to ruin, strengthless to save.” 

“Nay, Godwin, my lord, thou wrongest our handsome 
son.” 

“ Wife, wife,” said the earl, stamping his foot, “ hear 
me and obey me : for my words on earth may be few, 
and whilst thou gainsayest me the blood mounts to my 
brain, and my eyes see through a cloud.” 

“ Forgive me, sweet lord,” said Githa, humbly. 

“ Mickle and sore it repents me that in their youth I 
spared not the time from my worldly ambition to watch 
over the hearts of my sons ; and thou wert too proud of 
the surface without, to look well to the workings within, 
and what was once soft to the touch is now hard to the 
hammer. In the battle of life the arrows we neglect to 
pick up, Fate, our foe, will store in her quiver ; we have 
armed her ourselves with the shafts — the more need to 
beware with the shield. Wherefore, if thou survivest me, 
and if, as I forebode, dissension break out between Ha- 
rold and Tostig, I charge thee by memory of our love, 
and reverence for my grave, to deem wise and just all that 
Hai )ld deems just and wise. For when Godwin is in the 
dust, his House lives alone in Harold. Heed me now, 
and heed ever. And so, while the day yet lasts, I will 
go forth into the marts and the guilds, and talk with the 


HAROLD. 


239 


burgesses, and smile on their wives, and be, to the last, 
Godwin the smooth and the strong. ” 

So saying, the old earl arose, and walked forth with a 
firm step ; and his old hound sprang up, pricked its ears, 
and followed him ; the blinded falcon turned its head to- 
wards the clapping door, but did not stir from the dossel. 

Then Githa again leant her cheek on her hand, and 
again rocked herself to and fro, gazing into the red flame 
of the fire, — red and fitful through the blue smoke — and 
thought over her lord’s words. It might be the third part 
of an hour after Godwin had left the house, when the 
door opened, and Githa expecting the return of her sons, 
looked up eagerly, but it was Hilda, who stooped her 
head under the vault of the door ; and behind Hilda, 
came two of her maidens, bearing a small cyst, or chest. 
The Tala motioned to her attendants to lay the cyst at 
the feet of Githa, and, that done, with lowly salutation 
they left the room. 

The superstitions of the Danes were strong in Githa ; 
and she felt an indescribable awe when Hilda stood be- 
fore her, the red light playifig on the Yala’s stern marble 
face, and contrasting robes of funereal black. But, with 
all her awe, Githa, who, not educated like her daughter 
Edith, had few feminine resources, loved the visits of her 
mysterious kinswoman. She loved to live her youth over 
again in discourse on the wild customs and dark rites of 
the Dane ; and even her awe itself had the charm which 
the ghost tale has to the child; — for the illiterate are 


240 


HAROLD. 


ever children. So, recovering her surprise, and her first 
pause, she rose to welcome the Yala, and said: — 

“ Hail, Hilda, and thrice hail ! The day has been 
warm and the way long ; and, ere thou takest food and 
wine, let me prepare for thee the bath for thy form, or 
the bath for thy feet. For as sleep to the young, is the 
bath to the old.” 

Hilda shook her head. 

“ Bringer of sleep am I, and the baths I prepare are 
in the halls of Valhalla. Offer not to the Yala the bath 
for mortal weariness, and the wine and the food meet for 
human guests. Sit thee down, daughter of the Dane, 
and thank thy new gods for the past that hath been thine. 
Not ours is the present, and the future escapes from our 
dreams ; but the past is ours ever, and all eternity cannot 
revoke a single joy that the moment hath known.” 

Then seating herself in Godwin’s large chair, she leant 
over her seid-staff, and was silent, as if absorbed in her 
thoughts. 

“ Githa,” she said at last, “ where is thy lord ? I came 
to touch his hands and to look on his brow.” 

“ He hath gone forth into the mart, and my sons are 
from home : and Harold comes hither ere night, from his 
earldom.” 

A faint smile, as of triumph, broke over the lips of the 
Yala, and then as suddenly yielded to an expression of 
great sadness. 

“Githa,” she said, slowly, “doubtless thou remem 


HAROLD. 


241 


berest in thy young days to have seen or heard of the 
terrible hell-maid Belsta ? ” 

“Ay, ay,” answered Githa, shuddering; “I saw her 
once in gloomy weather,- driving before her herds of dark 
grey cattle. Ay, ay ; and my father beheld her ere his 
death, riding the air on a wolf, with a snake for a bridle. 
Why askest thou ? ” 

“Is it not strange,” said Hilda, evading the question, 
“that Belsta, and Heida, and Hulla of old, the wolf- 
riders, the men-devourers, could win to the uttermost 
secrets of galdra, though applied only to purposes the 
direst and fellest to man, and that I, though ever in the 
future, — I, though tasking the Normans not to afflict 
a foe, but to shape the careers of those I love, — I find, 
indeed, my predictions fulfilled : but how often, alas ! 
only in horror and doom!” 

“ How so, kinswoman, how so ?” said Githa, awed, yet 
charmed in the awe, and drawing her chair nearer to the 
mournful sorceress. “ Didst thou not foretell our return 
in triumph from the unjust outlawry, and, lo, it hath 
come to pass ? and hast thou not (here Githa’s proud 
face flushed) “foretold also that ray stately Harold shall 
wear the diadem of a king?” 

“Truly, the first came to pass,” said Hilda; “but — ” 
she paused, and her eye fell on the cyst ; then breaking 
off she continued, speaking to herself rather than to 
Githa — “And Harold’s dream, what did that portend? 
the runes fail me, and the dead give no voice. And bc- 
I. — 21 Q 


242 


HAROLD. 


yond oue dim day, in which his betrothed shall clasp him 
with the arms of a bride, all is dark to my vision — dark 

— dark. Speak not to me, Githa; for a burthen, heavy 
as the stone on a grave, rests on a weary heart ! ” 

A dead silence succeeded, till, pointing with her staff 
to the fire, the Yala said, “ Lo, where the smoke and the 
fiame contend! — the smoke rises in dark gyres to the 
air, and escapes, to join the wrack of clouds. From the 
first to the last we trace its birth and its fall ; from the 
heart Of the fire to the descent in the rain, so is it with 
human reason, which is not the light but the smoke; it 
struggles but to darken us ; it soars but to melt in the 
vapor and dew. Yet lo, the flame burns in our hearth 
till the fuel fails, and goes at last, none know whither. 
But it lives in the air though we see it not ; it lurks in 
the stone and waits the flash of the steel ; it coils round 
the dry leaves and sere stalks, and a touch re-illumines 
it ; it plays in the marsh — it collects in the heavens — it 
appals us in the lightning — it gives warmth to the air 

— life of our life, and element of all elements. O Githa, 
the flame is the light of the soul, the element everlasting ; 
and it liveth still, when it escapes from our view ; it 
burneth in the shapes to which it passes ; it vanishes but 
is never extinct. ” 

So saying, the Yala’s lips again closed; and again 
both the women sate silent by the great fire, as it flared 
and flickered over the deep lines and high features of 
Githa, the earl’s wife, and the calm, unwrinkled, solemn 
face of the melancholy Yala. 


HAROLD. 


243 


CHAPTER II. 

While these conferences took place in the house of 
Godwin, Harold, on his way to London, dismissed his 
train to precede him to his father’s roof, and, Striking 
across the country, rode fast and alone towards the old 
Roman abode of Hilda. Months had elapsed since he 
had seen or heard of Edith. News at that time, I need 
not say, was rare and scarce, and limited to public events, 
either transmitted by special nuncius, or passing pilgrim, 
or borne from lip to lip by the talk of the scattered multi- 
tude. But even in his busy and anxious duties, Harold 
had in vain sought to banish from his heart the image 
of that young girl, whose life he needed no Yala to pre- 
dict to him was interwoven with the fibres of his own. 
The obstacles which, while he yielded to, he held unjust 
and tyrannical, obstacles allowed by his reluctant reason 
and his secret ambition — not sanctified by conscience — 
only inflamed the deep strength of the solitary passion 
his life had known ; a passion that, dating from the very 
childhood of Edith, had, often unknown to himself, 
animated his desire of fame, and mingled with his visions 
of power. Nor, though hope was far and dim, was it 
extinct. The legitimate heir of Edward the Confessor 
was a prince living in the court of the Emperor, of fair 
repute, and himself wedded ; and Edward’s health, always 


244 


HAROLD. 


precarious, seemed to forbid any very prolonged existence 
to the reigning king. Therefore, he thought, that 
through the successor, whose throne would rest in safety 
upon Harold’s support, he might easily obtain that dis- 
pensation from the Pope which he knew the present king 
would never ask — a dispensation rarely indeed, if ever, 
accorded to any subject, and which, therefore, needed all 
a king’s power to back it. 

So in that hope, and fearful lest it should be quenched 
for ever by Edith’s adoption of the veil and the irrevoca- 
ble vow, with a beating, disturbed, but joyful heart, he 
rode over field and through forest to the old Roman 
house. 

He emerged at length to the rear of the villa, and the 
sun, fast hastening to its decline, shone full upon the 
rude columns of the Druid temple ; and there, as he had 
seen her before, when he had first spoken of love and its 
barriers, he beheld the young maiden. 

He sprang from his horse, and leaving the well-trained 
animal loose to browse on the waste land, he ascended 
the knoll. He stole noiselessly behind Edith, and his 
foot stumbled against the grave-stone of the dead Titan- 
Saxon of old ; but the apparition, whether real or fancied, 
and the dream that had followed, had long passed from 
his memory, and no superstition was in the heart spring- 
ing to the lips, that cried “Edith,” once again. 

The girl started, looked round, and fell upon his breast. 

It was some moments before she recovered conscious- 


HAROLD. 


245 


ness, and then, withdrawing herself gently from his arras, 
she leant for support against the Teuton altar. 

She was much changed since Harold had seen her last : 
her cheek had grown pale and thin, and her rounded form 
seemed wasted ; and sharp grief, as he gazed, shot 
through the soul of Harold. 

“ Thou hast pined, thou hast suffered,” said he mourn 
fully : “ and I, who would shed my life’s blood to take 
one from thy sorrows, or add to one of thy joys, have 
been afar, unable to comfort, perhaps only a cause of 
thy woe.” 

“No, Harold,” said Edith, faintly, “never of woe; 
always of comfort, even in absence. I have been ill, and 
Hilda hath tried rune and charm all in vain ; but I am 
better, now that Spring hath come tardily forth, and I 
look on the fresh flowers, and hear the song of the birds.” 

But tears were in the sound of her voice, while 6he 
spoke. 

“And they have not tormented thee again with the 
thoughts of the convent?” 

“They? no; — but my soul, yes. O Harold, release 
me from my promise ; for the time already hath come 
that thy sister foretold to me ; the silver cord is loosened, 
and the golden bowl is broken, and I would fain take the 
wings of the dove, and be at peace.” 

“ Is it so ? — Is there peace in the home where the 
thought of Harold becomes a sin ? ” 

“ Not sin then and there, Harold, not sin. Thy sifter 
21 * 


246 


HAROLD. 


hailed the convent when she thought of prayer for those 
she loved.” 

“ Prate not to me of my sister 1 ” said Harold, through 
his set teeth. “ It is but a mockery to talk of prayer for 
the heart that thou thyself rendest in twain. Where is 
Hilda? I would see her.” 

“ She hath gone to thy father’s house with a gift; and 
it was to watch for her return that I sate on the green 
knoll.” 

The earl then drew near and took her hand, and sate 
by her side, and they conversed long. But Harold saw 
with a fierce pang that Edith’s heart was set upon the 
convent, and that even in his presence, and despite his 
soothing words, she was broken-spirited and despondent. 
It seemed as if her youth and life had gone from her, 
and the day had come in which she said, “ There is no 
pleasure.” 

Never had he seen her thus ; and, deeply moved as 
well as keenly stung, he rose at length to depart ; her 
hand lay passive in his parting clasp, and a slight shiver 
went over her frame. 

“Farewell, Edith; when I return from Windshore, I 
shall be at ray old home yonder, and we shall meet 
again.” 

Edith’s lips murmured inaudibly, and she bent her eyes 
to the ground. 

Slowly Harold regained his steed, and as he rode on, 
he looked behind and waved oft his hand ; but Edith 
sate motionless, her eyes still on the ground, and he saw 


HAROLD. 


247 


not tlie tears that fell from them fast and burning; nor 
heard he the low voice that groaned amidst the heathen 
ruins, “ Mary ; sweet mother, shelter me from my own 
heart ! u 

The sun had set before Harold gained the long and 
spacious abode of his father. All around it lay the roofs 
and huts of the great earl’s special tradesmen, for even 
his goldsmith was but his freed ceorl. The house itself 
stretched far from the Thames inland, with several low 
courts built only of timber, rugged and shapeless, but 
filled with bold men, then the great furniture of a noble’s 
halls. 

Amidst the shouts of hundreds, eager to hold his 
stirrup, the earl dismounted, passed the swarming hall, 
and entered the room, in which he found Hilda and 
Githa — and Godwin, who had preceded his entry but a 
few minutes. 

In the beautiful reverence of son to father, which made 
one of the loveliest features of the Saxon character * (as 
the frequent want of it makes the most hateful of the 
Norman vices), the all-powerful Harold bowed his knee 
to the old earl, who placed his hand on his head in bene- 
diction, and then kissed him on the cheek and brow. 

“ Thy kiss, too, dear mother,” said the younger earl ; 
and Githa’s embrace, if more cordial than her lord’s, 
was not, perhaps, more fond. 

* The chronicler, however, laments that the household ties, for- 
merly so strong with the Anglo-Saxon, had been much weakened 
in the age prior to the Conquest 


248 


HAROLD. 


“ Greet Hilda, my son,” said Godwin, “ she hath 
brought me a gift, and she hath tarried to place it under 
thy special care. Thou alone must heed the treasure, 
and open the casket. But when and where, my kins- 
woman ?” 

“ On the sixth day after thy coming to the king ? s 
hall,” answered Hilda, not returning the smile with which 
Godwin spoke — “ on the sixth day, Harold, open the 
chest, and take out the robe which hath been spun in 
the house of Hilda for Godwin the Earl. And now, 
Godwin, I have clasped thine hand, and I have looked 
on thy brow, and my mission is done ; and I must wend 
homeward. ” 

11 That shalt thou not, Hilda,” said the hospitable earl ; 
“ the meanest wayfarer hath a right to bed and board in 
this house for a night and a day, and thou wilt not dis- 
grace us by leaving our threshold, the bread unbroken, 
and the couch unpressed. Old friend, we were young 
together, and thy face is welcome to me as the memory 
of former days.” 

Hilda shook her head, and one of those rare, and for 
that reason, most touching, expressions of tenderness, of 
which the calm and rigid character of her features, when 
in repose, seemed scarcely susceptible, softened her eye, 
and relaxed the firm lines of her lips. 

" Son of Wolnoth,” said she, gently, “not under thy 
roof-tree should lodge the raven of bode. Bread have I 
not broken since yestere’en, and sleep will be far from 
my eyes to-night. Fear not, for my people without are 


HAROLD. 


249 


stout and armed, and for the rest there lives not the man 
whose arm can have power over Hilda. ” 

She took Harold’s hand as she spoke, and leading 
him forth, whispered in his ear, “ I would have a word 
with thee ere we part.” Then, reaching the threshold, 
she waved her wand thrice over the floor, and muttered 
in the Danish tongue a rude verse, which, translated, 
ran somewhat thus : — 

“All free from the knot 

Glide the thread of the skein, 

And rest to the labor, 

And peace to the pain!” 

“It is a death-dirge,” said Githa, with whitening lips; 
but she spoke inly, and neither husband nor son heard 
her words. 

Hilda and Harold passed in silence through the hall, 
and the Yala’s attendants, with spears and torches, rose 
from the settles, and went before to the outer court, 
where snorted impatiently her black palfrey. 

Halting in the midst of the court, she said to Harold 
in a low voice — 

“At sunset we part — at sunset we shall meet again. 
And behold, the star rises on the sunset ; and the star, 
broader and brighter, shall rise on the sunset then 1 
When thy hand draws the robe from the chest, think on 
Hilda, and know that at that hour she stands by the 
grave of the Saxon warrior, and that from the grave 
dawns the future. Farewell to thee ! ” 

Harold longed to speak to her of Edith, but a stiange 
21 * 


250 


HAROLD. 


awe at his heart chained his lips ; so he stood silent by 
the great wooden gates of the rude house. The torches 
flamed round him, and Hilda’s face seemed lurid in the 
glare. There he stood musing long after torch and ceorl 
had passed away, nor did he wake from his reverie till 
Gurth, springing from his panting horse, passed his arm 
round the earl’s shoulder, and cried — 

“ How did I miss thee, my brother ! and why didst 
thou forsake thy train ? ” 

“ I will tell thee anon. Gurth, has my father ailed ? 
There is that in his face which I like not.” 

“ He hath not complained of misease,” said Gurth, 
startled; “but now thou speakest of it, his mood hath 
altered of late, and he hath wandered much alone, or 
only with the old hound and the old falcon.” 

Then Harold turned back, and his heart was full, and 
when he reached the house, his father was sitting in the 
hall on his chair of state ; and Githa sate on his right 
hand, and a little below her sate Tostig and Leofwine, 
who had come in from the bear-hunt by the river-gate, 
and were talking loud and merrily; and thegns and 
cnehts sate all around, and there was wassail as Harold 
entered ; but the earl looked only to his father, and he 
saw that his eyes were absent from the glee, and that he 
was bending his head over the old falcon, which sate oe 
his wrist. 


HAROLD. 


251 


CHAPTER III. 

No subject of England, since the race oi Cerdic sate 
on the throne, ever entered the court-yard of Windshore 
with such train and such state as Earl Godwin. Proud 
of that first occasion, since his return, to do homage to 
him with whose cause that of England against the 
stranger was bound, all truly English at heart amongst 
the thegns of the land swelled his retinue. Whether 
Saxon or Dane, those who alike loved the laws and the 
soil, came from north and from south to the peaceful 
banner of the old earl ; but most of these were of the 
past generation, for the rising race were still dazzled by 
the pomp of the Norman ; and the fashion of English 
manners, and the pride in English deeds, had gone out 
of date with long locks and bearded chins. Nor there, 
were the bishops and abbots and the lords of the Church, 
— for dear to them already the fame of the Norman piety, 
and they shared the distaste of their holy king to the 
strong sense and homely religion of Godwin, who founded 
no convents, and rode to war with no relics round his 
Deck ; but they with Godwin were the stout and the frank 
and the free, in whom rested the pith and marrow of Eng- 
lish manhood ; and they who were against him were the 
blind and willing and fated fathers of slaves unborn. 

Not then the stately castle we now behold, which is of 


252 , 


HAROLD. 


the masonry of a prouder race, nor on the same site, but 
two miles distant on the winding of the river shore 
(whence it took its name), a rude building partly of tim- 
ber and partly of Roman brick, adjoining a large monas- 
tery and surrounded by a small hamlet, constituted the 
palace of the saint-king. 

So rode the earl and his four fair sons, all abreast, into 
the court-yard of Windshore.* Now when King Edward 
heard the tramp of the steeds and the hum of the multi- 
tudes, as he sate in his closet with his abbots and priests, 
all in still contemplation of the thumb of St. Jude, the 
king asked, — 

“ What army, in the day of peace, and the time of 
Easter, enters the gates of our palace ? ” 

Then an abbot rose and looked out of the narrow win- 
dow, and said with a groan, — 

“Army thou may’st well call it, O king ! — and foes to 

us and to thee head the legions ” 

“ Inprinis,” quoth our abbot the scholar ; “ thou speak- 
est, I trow, of the wicked earl and his sons.” 

The king’s face changed. “ Come they,” said he, “ with 
so large a train ? This smells more of vaunt than of 
loyalty: naught — very naught.” 


*Some authorities state Winchester as the scene of these memoi 
able festivities. Old Windsor Castle is supposed by Mr. Lysons u» 
have occupied the site of a farm of Mr. Isherwood’s, surrounded 
by a moat, about two miles distant from New Windsor. He con- 
jectures that it was still occasionally inhabited by the Norman 
kings till 1110. The ville surrounding it only contained ninety- 
five houses, paying gabel-tax. in the Norman survey. 


HAROLD. 


255 


“Alack ! ” said one of the conclave, “ I fear me that 
the men of Belial will work us harm ; the heathen are 
mighty, and ” 

“Fear not,” said Edward, with benign loftiness, ob 
serving that his guests grew pale, and himself, though 
often weak to childishness, and morally wavering and 
irresolute, — still so far king and gentleman, that he knew 
no craven fear of the body. “ Fear not for me, my 
fathers ; humble as I am, I am strong in the faith of 
heaven and its angels.” 

The churchmen looked at each other, sly yet abashed ; 
it was not precisely for the king that they feared. 

Then spoke Aired, the good prelate and constant peace- 
maker — fair column and lone one of the fast-crumbling 
Saxon Church. “ It is ill in you, brethren, to arraign 
the truth and good meaning of those who honor your 
king ; and in these days that lord should ever be the most 
welcome who brings to the halls of his king the largest 
number of hearts, stout and leal.” 

“ By your leave, brother Aired,” said Stigand, who, 
though from motives of policy he had aided those who 
besought the king not to peril his crown by resisting the 
return of Godwin, benefited too largely by the abuses of 
the Church to be sincerely espoused to the cause of the 
strong-minded earl; “By your leave, brother Aired, to 
every leal heart is a ravenous mouth ; and the treasures 
of the king are well-nigh drained in feeding these hungry 
and welcomeless visitors. Durst I counsel, my lord, I 
would pray him, as a matter of policy, to baffle this astute 
I. — 22 


254 


HAROLD. 


and proud earl. He would fain have the king feast in 
public, that he might daunt him and the Church with the 
array of his friends.” 

“ I conceive thee, my father,” said Edward, with more 
quickness than habitual, and with the cunning, sharp 
though guileless, that belongs to minds undeveloped, “ I 
conceive thee ; it is good and most politic. This our 
orgulous earl shall not have his triumph, and, so fresh 
from his exile, brave his king with the mundane parade 
of his power. Our health is our excuse for our absence 
from the banquet, and, sooth to say, we marvel much 
why Easter should be held a fitting time for feasting and 
mirth. Wherefore, Hugoline, my chamberlain, advise 
the earl, that to-day we keep fast till the sunset, when 
temperately, with eggs, bread, and fish, we will sustain 
Adam’s nature. Pray him and his sons to attend us — 
they alone be our guests.” And with a sound that 
seemed a laugh, or the ghost of a laugh, low and chuck- 
ling — for Edward had at moments an innocent humor 
which his monkish biographer disdained not to note,* — 
he flung himself back in his chair. The priests took the 
cue, and shook their sides heartily, as Hugoline left the 
room, not ill pleased, by the way, to escape an invitation 
to the eggs, bread, and fish. 

Aired sighed; and said, “For the earl and his sons, 
this is honor ; but the other earls and the thegns, will 
miss at the banquet him whom they design but to honor, 
and ” 


* Ailred, de Yit. Edward , Confess. 


HAROLD. 


255 


“I have said,’* interrupted Edward, dryly, and with a 
iook of fatigue. 

“And,” observed another churchman, with malice, “ at 
least the young earls will be humbled, for they will not 
sit with the king and their father, as they would in the 
Hall, and must serve my lord with napkin and wine.” 

“ Inprinis ,” quoth our scholar the abbot, “ that will bo 
rare ! I would I were by to see ; but this Godwin is t 
man of treachery and wile, and my lord should beware ot 
the fate of murdered Alfred his brother ! ” 

The king started, and pressed his hands to his eyes. 

“ How darest thou, Abbot of Fatchere,” cried Aired 
indignantly ; “ How darest thou revive grief wit'hou 
remedy, and slander without proof?” 

“Without proof?” echoed Edward, in a hollow voice. 
“He who could murder, could well stoop to forswear! 
Without proof before man ; but did he try the ordeals of 
God? — did his feet pass the plough-share? — did his 
hand grasp the seething-iron ? Yerily, verily, thou didst 
wrong to name to me Alfred my brother ! I shall see 
his sightless and gore-dropping sockets in the face of 
Godwin, this day, at my board.” 

The king rose in great disorder ; and after pacing the 
room some moments, disregardful of the silent and scared 
looks of his churchmen, waved his hand, in sign to them 
to depart. All took the hint at once save Aired ; but 
he, lingering the last, approached the king with dignity 
in his step and compassion in his eyes. 

“Banish from thy breast, 0 king and son, thoughts un 


256 


HAROLD. 


meet, and of doubtful charity ! All that man could know 
of Godwin’s innocence or guilt — the suspicion of the 
vulgar — the acquittal of his peers, — was known to thee 
before thou didst seek his aid for thy throne, and didst 
take his child for thy wife. Too late is it now to sus- 
pect ; leave thy doubts to the solemn day, which draws 
nigh to the old man, thy wife’s father ! ” 

“ Ha ! ” said the king, seeming not to heed, or wilfully 
to misunderstand the prelate, “ Ha, leave him to God 
I will!” 

He turned away impatiently ; and the prelate reluct- 
antly departed. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Tostig chafed mightily at the king’s message ; and, on 
Harold’s attempt to pacify him, grew so violent that 
nothing short of the cold, stern command of his father, 
who carried with him that weight of authority never 
known but to those in whom wrath is still and passion 
noiseless, imposed sullen peace on his son’s rugged nature. 
But the taunts heaped by Tostig upon Harold disquieted 
the old earl, and his brow was yet sad with prophetic 
care when he entered the royal apartments. He had been 
introduced into the king’s presence but a moment before 
Hugoline led the way to the chamber of repast, and the 
greeting between king and earl had been brief and formal. 


HAROLD. 


257 

Under the canopy of state were placed but two chairs, 
for the king and the queen’s father ; and the four sons, 
Harold, Tostig, Leofwine, and Gurth, stood behind. 
Such was the primitive custom of ancient Teutonic kings j 
and the feudal Norman monarchs only enforced, though 
with more pomp and more rigor, the ceremonial of the 
forest patriarchs — youth to wait on age, and the ministers 
of the realm on those whom their policy had made chiefs 
in council and war. 

The earl’s mind, already embittered by the scene with 
his sons, was chafed yet more by the king’s unloving 
coldness ; for it is natural to man, however worldly, to 
feel affection for those he has served, and Godwin had 
won Edward his crown ; nor, despite his warlike though 
bloodless return, could even monk or Norman, in count- 
ing up the old earl’s crimes, say that he had ever failed 
in personal respect to the king he had made ; nor over- 
great for subject, as the earl’s power must be confessed, 
will historian now be found to say that it had not been 
well for Saxon England if Godwin had found more favor 
with his king, and monk and Norman less.* 

So the old earl’s stout heart was stung, and he looked 

* “ Is it astonishing,” asked the people (referring to Edward’s 
preference of the Normans), “that the author and support of 
Edward’s reign should be indignant at seeing new men from a 
foreign nation raised above him, and yet never does he utter one 
narsh word to the man whom he himself created king.” — Hazlitt’s 
Thierry, vol. i. p. 126. 

This is the English account ( versus the Norman). There can be 
little doubt that it is the true one. 

22 * 


R 


258 


HAROLD. 


from those deep, impenetrable eyes, mournfully upon Ed- 
ward’s chilling brow. 

And Harold, with whom all household ties were strong, 
but to whom his great father was especially dear, watched 
his face and saw that it was very flushed. But the 
practised courtier sought to rally his spirits, and to smile 
and jest. 

From smile and jest, the king turned and asked for 
wine. Harold, starting, advanced with the goblet ; as 
he did so, he stumbled with one fpot, but lightly re- 
covered himself with the other; and Tostig laughed 
scornfully at Harold’s awkwardness. 

The old earl observed both stumble and laugh, and 
willing to suggest a lesson to both his sons, said — laugh- 
ing pleasantly — “ Lo, Harold, how the left foot saves 
the right ! — so one brother, thou seest, helps the other 1 ” * 

King Edward looked up suddenly. 

“ And so, Godwin, also, had my brother Alfred helped 
me, liadst thou permitted.” 

The old earl, galled to the quick, gazed a moment on 
the king, and his cheek was purple, and his eyes seemed 
bloodshot. 

“ 0 Edward!” he exclaimed, “thou speakest t> me 
hardly and unkindly of thy brother Alfred, and often hast 
thou thus more than hinted that I caused his death.” 

The king made no answer. 

“ May this crumb of bread choke me,” said the earl, 


* Henry of Huntingdon, &c. 


rr a r o l d . 


259 


in great emotion, “if I am guilty of thy brother’s 
blood 1 ” * 

But scarcely had the bread touched his lips, when his 
eyes fixed, the long warning symptoms were fulfilled. 
And he fell to the ground, under the table, sudden and 
heavy, smitten by the stroke of apoplexy. 

Harold and Gurth sprang forward, they drew their 
father from the ground. His face, still deep-red with 
streaks of purple, rested on Harold’s breast; and the 
son, kneeling, called in anguish on his father : the ear 
was deaf. 

Then said the king, rising, — 

“ It is the hand of God : remove him 1 ” and he swept 
from the room, exulting. 


CHAPTER Y. 

For five days and five nights did Godwin lie speech* 
less.f And Harold watched over him night and day. 
And the leaches J would not bleed him, because the 
season was against it, in the increase of the moon and 
the tides, but they bathed his temples with wheat flour 
boiled in milk, according to a prescription which an 


* Henry of Huntingdon ; Bromt. Cliron. &c. f Hoveden. 

+ The origin of the word leach (physician), which has puzzled 
gome inquirers, is from lich, or leac, a body. Leich is the old Saxon 
word for surgeon. 


260 


HAROLD. 


angel in a dream * had advised to another patient ; and 
they placed a plate of lead on his breast, marked with 
live crosses, saying a paternoster over each cross ; to- 
gether with other medical specifics in great esteem, j* 
But, nevertheless, five days and five nights did Godwin 
lie speechless ; and the leaches then feared that human 
skill was in vain. 

The effect produced ' on the court, not more by the 
earl’s death-stroke than the circumstances preceding it, 
was such as defies description. With Godwin’s old com- 
rades in arms, it was simple and honest grief ; but with 
all those under the influence of the priests, the event was 
regarded as a direct punishment from Heaven. The 
previous words of the king, repeated by Edward to his 
monks, circulated from lip to lip, with sundry exaggera- 
tions as it travelled : and the superstition of the day had 
the more excuse, inasmuch as the speech of Godwin 
touched near upon the defiance of one of the most popular 
ordeals of the accused, — viz. that called the “corsned,” 
in which a piece of bread was given to the supposed 
criminal : if he swallowed it with ease, he was innocent* 
if it stuck in his throat, or choked him, nay, if he shook 
and turned pale, he was guilty. Godwin’s words had 
appeared to invite the ordeal, God had heard and stricken 
down the presumptuous perjurer ! 

Unconscious, happily, of these attempts to blacken the 
name of his dying father, Harold, towards the grey dawn 


* Sharon Turner, vol. i. p. 472. 


f Fosbrooko 


HAROLD. 


261 


succeeding the fifth night, thought that he heard Godwin 
stir in his bed. So he put aside the curtain, and bent 
over him. The old earl’s eyes were wide open, and the 
red color had gone from his cheeks, so that he was pale 
as death. 

“How fares it, dear father?” asked Harold. 

Godwin smiled fondly, and tried to speak, but hia 
voice died in a convulsive rattle. Lifting himself up, 
however, with an effort, he pressed tenderly the hand 
that clasped his own, leant his head on Harold’s breast, 
and so gave up the ghost. 

When Harold was at last aware that the struggle was 
over, he laid the grey head gently on the pillow ; he closed 
the eyes, and kissed the lips, and knelt down and prayed. 
Then, seating himself at a little distance, he covered his 
face with his mantle. 

At this time his brother Gurth, who had chiefly shared 
watch with Harold, — for Tostig, foreseeing his father’s 
death, was busy soliciting thegn and earl to support his 
own claims to the earldom about to be vacant ; and 
Leofwine had gone to London on the previous day to 
summon Githa, who was hourly expected — Gurth, I say, 
entered the room on tiptoe, and seeing his brother’s 
attitude, guessed that all was over. He passed on to the 
table, took up the lamp, and looked long on his father’s 
face. That strange smile of the dead, common alike to 
innocent and guilty, had already settled on the serene 
lips ; and that no less strange transformation from age to 
youth, when the wrinkles vanish, and the features come 


262 


HAROLD. 


out clear and sharp from the hollows of care and years, 
had already begun. And the old man seemed sleeping 
in his prime. 

So Gurth kissed the dead, as Harold had done before 
him, and came up and sate himself by his brother’s feet, 
aud rested his head on Harold’s knee ; nor would he 
speak till, appalled by the long silence of the earl, he 
drew away the mantle from his brother’s face with a 
gentle hand, and the large tears were rolling down 
Harold’s cheeks. 

“Be soothed, my brother,” said Gurth; “our father 
has lived for glory, his age was prosperous, and his years 
more than those which the Psalmist allots to man. Come 
and look on his face, Harold ; its calm will comfort thee.” 

Harold obeyed the hand that led him like a child ; in 
passing towards the bed, his eye fell upon the cyst which 
Hilda had given to the old earl, and a chill shot through 
his veins. 

“ Gurth,” said he, “ is not this the morning of the sixth 
day in which we have been at the king’s court ? ” 

“It is the morning of the sixth day.” 

Then Harold took forth the key which Hilda had given 
him, and unlocked the cyst, — and there lay the white 
winding-sheet of the dead, and a scroll. Harold took 
the scroll, and bent over it, reading by the mingled light 
of the lamp and the dawn : — 

“All hail, Harold, heir of Godwin the great, and Githa 
the king-born ! Thou hast obeyed Hilda, and thou know- 
est now that Hilda’s eyes read the future, and her lips 


HAROLD. 


263 


speak the dark words of truth. Bow thy heart to the 
Yala, and mistrust the wisdom that sees only the things 
of the day-light. As the valor of the warrior and the 
song of the scald, so is the lore of the prophetess. It 
is not of the body, it is soul within soul ; it marshals 
events and men, like the Yala — it moulds the air into 
substance, like the song. Bow thy heart to the Yala. 
Flowers bloom over the grave o f the dead. And the 
young plant soars high, when the king ot tne woodland 
des low ! ” 


CHAPTER YI. 

The sun rose, and the stairs and passages without were 
filled with the crowds that pressed to hear news of the 
earl’s health. The doors stood open, and Gurth led in 
the multitude to look their last on the hero of council 
and camp, who had restored with strong hand and wise 
brain the race of Cerdic to the Saxon throne. Harold 
stood by the bed-head silent, and tears were shed and sobs 
were heard. And many a tliegn who had before half 
believed in the guilt of Godwin as the murderer of A1 
fred, whispered in gasps to his neighbor, — 

“ There is no weregeld for man-slaying on the head of 
him, who smiles so in death on his old comrades in life ! ” 
Last of all lingered Leofric, the great earl of Mercia ; 
and when the rest had departed, he took the pale hand, 
that lay heavy on the coverlid, in his own, and said — 


264 


HAROLD. 


“ Old foe, often stood we in Witan and field against 
each other; but few are the friends for whom Leofric 
would mourn as he mourns for thee. Peace to thy soul ! 
Whatever its sins, England should judge thee mildly, for 
England beat in each pulse of thy heart, and with thy 
greatness was her own ! ” 

Then Harold stole round the bed, and put his arms 
round Leofric’s neck, and embraced him. The good old 
earl was touched, and he laid his tremulous hands on 
Harold’s brown locks and blessed him. 

“Harold,” he said, “thou succeedest to thy father’s 
power : let thy father’s foes be thy friends. Wake from 
thy grief, for thy country now demands thee, — the honor 
of thy House, and the memory of the dead. Many even 
now plot against thee and thine. Seek the king, demand 
as thy right thy father’s earldom, and Leofric will back 
thy claim in the Witan.” 

Harold pressed Leofric’s hand, and raising it to his 
lips replied — “Be our houses at peace henceforth and 
for ever ! ” 

Tostig’s vanity indeed misled him, when he dreamed 
that any combination of Godwin’s party could meditate 
supporting his claims against the popular Harold — nor 
less did the monks deceive themselves, when they sup. 
posed, that with Godwin’s death, the power of his family 
would fall. 

There was more than even the unanimity of the chiefs 
of the Witan, in favor of Harold ; there was that univer- 
sal noiseless impression throughout all England, Danish 


HAROLD. 


265 


and Saxon, that Harold was now the sole man on whom 
rested the state — which, whenever it so favors one indi- 
vidual, is irresistible. Nor was Edward himself hostile 
to Harold, whom alone of that House, as we have before 
said, he esteemed and loved. 

Harold was at once named Earl of Wessex ; and re- 
linquishing the earldom he held before, he did not hesi- 
tate as to the successor to be recommended in his place. 
Conquering all jealousy and dislike for Algar, he united 
the strength of his party in favor of the son of Leofric, 
and the election fell upon him. With all his hot errors, 
the claims of no other earl, whether from his own capa- 
cities or his father’s services, were so strong ; and his 
election probably saved the state from a great danger, in 
the results of that angry mood and that irritated ambi- 
tion with which he had thrown himself into the arms of 
England’s most valiant aggressor, Gryffyth, king of North 
Wales. 

To outward appearance, by this election, the House 
of Leofric — uniting in father and son the two mighty 
districts of Mercia and the East Anglians — became more 
powerful than that of Godwin ; for, in that last House, 
Harold was now only the possessor of one of the great 
earldoms, and Tostig and the other brothers had no other 
provision beyond the comparatively insignificant lordships 
they held before. But if Harold had ruled no earldom 
at all, he had still been immeasurably the first man in 
England — so great was the confidence reposed in his 
I.— 23 


266 


HAROLD. 


valor and wisdom. He was of that height in himself, 
that he needed no pedestal to stand on. 

The successor of the first great founder of a House 
succeeds to more than his predecessor’s power, if he but 
know how to wield and maintain it ; for who makes his 
way to greatness without raising foes at every step ? and 
who ever rose to power supreme, without grave cause for 
blame ? But Harold stdod free from the enmities his 
father had provoked, and pure from the stains that slan- 
der or repute cast upon his father’s name. The sun of 
the yesterday had shone through cloud ; the sun of the 
day rose in a clear firmament. Even Tostig recognized 
the superiority of his brother ; and, after a strong strug- 
gle between baffled rage and covetous ambition, yielded 
to him, as to a father. He felt that all Godwin’s house 
was centered in Harold alone ; and that only from his 
brother (despite his own daring valor, and despite his 
alliance with the blood of Charlemagne and Alfred, 
through the sister of Matilda, the Norman duchess), 
could his avarice of power be gratified. 

“ Depart to thy home, my brother,” said Earl Harold 
to Tostig, “ and grieve not that Algar is preferred to 
thee ; for, even had his claim been less urgent, ill would 
it have beseemed us to arrogate the lordships of all Eng- 
land as our dues. Rule thy lordship with wisdom : gain 
the love of thy lithsmen. High claims hast thou in our 
father’s name, and moderation now will but strengthen 
thee in the season to come. Trust on Harold somewhat, 
on thyself more. Thou hast but to add temper and judg- 


HAROLD. 


2 &T 

ment to valor and zeal, to be worthy mate of the first earl 
in England. Over my father’s corpse I embraced my 
father’s foe. Between brother and brother shall there 
not be love, as the best bequest of the dead ? ” 

“ It shall not be my fault, if there be not,” answered 
Tostig, humbled though chafed. And he summoned his 
men and returned to his domains. 


CHAPTER YII. 

Fair, broad, and calm set the sun over the western 
woodlands ; and Hilda stood on the mound, and looked 
with undazzled eyes on the sinking orb. Beside her, 
Edith reclined on the sward, and seemed, with idle hand, 
tracing characters in the air. The girl had grown paler 
still, since Harold last parted from her on the same spot, 
and the same listless and despondent apathy stamped her 
smileless lips and her bended head. 

“ See, child of my heart,” said Hilda, addressing Edith, 
while she still gazed on the western luminary, “see, the 
sun goes down to the far deeps, where Rana and JSgir * 
watch over the worlds of the sea ; but with morning he 

*JEgir, the Scandinavian god of the ocean. Net one of the Aser, 
or Asas (the celestial race), but sprung from the giants. Ran or 
Rana, his wife, a more malignant character, who caused ship- 
wrecks, and drew to herself, by a net, all that fell into the sea. 
The offspring of this marriage were nine daughters, who became 
the Billows, the Currents, and the Storms. 


268 


HAROLD. 


comes from the halls of Asas — the golden gates of the 
East — and joy comes in his train. And yet thou thinkest, 
sad child, whose years have scarce passed into woman, 
that the sun, once set, never comes back to life I But 
even while we speak, thy morning draws near, and the 
dunness of cloud takes the hues of the rose ! ” 

Edith’s hand paused from its vague employment, and 
fell droopingly on her knee ; — she turned with an unquiet 
and anxious eye to Hilda, and after looking some mo- 
ments wistfully at the Yala, the color rose to her cheek, 
and she said in a voice that had an accent half of anger — 
“Hilda, thou art cruel!” 

“So is Fate!” answered the Yala. “But men call 
not Fate cruel when it smiles on their desires. Why 
callest thou Hilda cruel, when she reads in the setting 
sun the runes of thy coming joy ! ” 

“ There is no joy for me,” returned Edith, plaintively ; 
“ and I have that on ray heart,” she added, with a sudden 
and almost fierce change of tone, “ which at last I will 
dare to speak. I reproach thee, Hilda, that thou hast 
marred all my life, that thou hast duped me with dreams, 
and left me alone in despair.” 

“ Speak on,” said Hilda, calmly, as a nurse to a fro- 
ward child. 

“ Hast thou not told me, from the first dawn of my 
wondering reason, that my life and lot were inwoven with 
— with (the word, mad and daring, must out) with^those 
of Harold the peerless ? But for that, which my infancy 
took from thy lips as a law, I had never been so vain and 


HAROLD. 


269 


so frz/.tic 1 I had uever watched each play of his face 
and treasured each word from his lips ; I had never made 
my life but a part of his life — all my soul but the shadow 
of his sun. But for that, I had hailed the calm of the 
cloister — but for that, I had glided in peace to my grave. 
And now — now , 0 Hilda — ” Edith paused, and that 
break had more eloquence than any words she could com- 
mand. “And,” she resumed quickly, “thou knowest 
that these hopes were but dreams — that the law ever 
stood between him and me — and that it was guilt to love 
him.” 

“I knew the law,” answered Hilda, “but the law of 
fools is to the wise as the cobweb swung over the brake 
to the wing of the bird. Ye are sibbe to each other, 
some five times removed ; and, therefore, an old man at 
Rome saith, that ye ought not to wed. When the shave- 
lings obey the old man at Rome, and put aside their own 
wives and frillas,* and abstain from the wine-cup, and 
the chase, and the brawl, I will stoop to hear of their 
laws, — with disrelish it may be, but without scorn, j* It 
is no sin to love Harold ; and no monk and no law shall 

* Frilla, the Danish word for a lady who, often with the wife’s 
consent, was added to the domestic circle by the husband. The 
word is here used by Hilda in a general sense of reproach. Both 
marriage and concubinage were common amongst the Anglo-Saxon 
priesthood, despite the unheeded canons ; and so, indeed, they were 
with the French clergy. 

f Hilda, not only as a heathen, but as a Dane, would be n*' favorer 
of monks. They were unknown in Denmark at that time, and the 
Danes held them in odium. — Ord. Vital, lib. vii. 

23 * 


HAROLD. 


W 

prevent your union on the day appointed to bring ye 
together, form and heart’’ 

“ Hilda ! Hilda ! madden me not with joy,” cried 
Edith, starting up in rapturous emotion, her young face 
dyed with blushes, and all her renovated beauty so celes- 
tial that Hilda herself was almost awed, as if by the vision 
of Freya, the northern Venus, charmed by a spell from 
the halls of Asgard. 

“ But that day is distant,” renewed the Tala. 
u What matters 1 what matters ! ” cried the pure child 
of Nature; “ I ask but hope. Enough, — oh! enough, 
if we were but wedded on the borders of the grave ! ” 

“ Lo, then,” said Hilda, u behold, the sun of thy life 
dawns again I ’’ 

As she spoke, the Vala stretched her arm, and, through 
the intersticed columns of the fane, Edith saw the large 
shadow of a man cast over the still sward. Presently into 
the space of the circle came Harold, her beloved. His 
face was pale with grief yet recent ; but, perhaps, more 
than ever, dignity was in his step and command on his 
brow, for he felt that now alone with him rested the might 
of Saxon England. And what royal robe so invests with 
imperial majesty the form of man as the grave sense ; t 
power responsible, in an earnest soul? 

“ Thou comest,” said Hilda, “in the hour I predicted ; 
at the setting of the sun and the rising of the star.” 

“ Tala,” said Harold, gloomily, “ I will not oppose my 
sense to thy prophecies ; for who shall judge of that 
power of which he knows not the elements ? or despise 


HAROLD. 


2T1 


the marvel of which he cannot detect the imposture ? 
But leave me, I pray thee, to walk in the broad light of 
the common day. These hands are made to grapple with 
things palpable, and these eyes to measure the forms that 
front my way. In my youth, I turned in despair or dis- 
gust from the subtleties of the schoolmen, which split 
upon hairs the brains of Lombard and Frank ; in my 
busy and stirring manhood, entangle me not in the meshes 
which confuse all my reason, and sicken my waking 
thoughts into dreams of awe. Mine be the straight path 
and the plain goal 1 ” 

The Tala gazed on him with an earnest look, that par- 
took of admiration, and yet more of gloom ; but she 
spoke not, and Harold resumed.— 

“Let the dead rest, Hilda— proud names with glory 
on earth, and shadows escaped from our ken, submissive 
to mercy in heaven. A vast chasm have my steps over- 
leapt since we met, O Hilda — sweet Edith; — a vast 
chasm, but a narrow grave. ” His voice faltered a mo- 
ment, and again he renewed : — “ Thou weepest, Edith ; 
ah, how thy tears console me ! Hilda, hear me 1 I love 
thy grandchild — loved her by irresistible instinct since 
her blue eyes first smiled on mine. I loved her in her 
childhood, as in her youth — in the blossom as in the 
flower; and thy grandchild loves me. The laws of the 
Church proscribe our marriage, and therefore we parted ; 
but I feel, and thine Edith feels, that the love remains as 
strong in absence : no other will be her wedded lord, no 
ether my wedded wife. Therefore, with a heart made 


272 


HAROLD. 


soft by sorrow, and, in ray father’s death, sole lord of my 
fate, I return, and say to thee in her presence, ‘ Suffer ua 
to hope still ! ’ The day may come, when under some 
king less enthralled than Edward by formal Church laws, 
we may obtain from the Pope absolution for our nuptials, 
— a day, perhaps, far off; but we are both young, and 
love is strong and patient: we can wait.” 

“O Harold,” exclaimed Edith, “we can wait!” 

“ Have I not told thee, son of Godwin,” said the Yala, 
solemnly, “ that Edith’s skein of life was enwoven with 
thine ? Dost thou deem that my charms have not ex- 
plored the destiny of the last of my race ? Know that 
it is in the decrees of the fates that ye are to be united, 
never more to be divided. Know that there shall come 
a day, though I can see not its morrow, and it lies dim 
and afar, which shall be the most glorious of thy life, 
and on which Edith and fame shall be thine, — the day of 
thy nativity, on which hitherto all things have prospered 
with thee. In vain against the stars preach the mone 
and the priest : what shall be, shall be. Wherefore, take 
hope and joy, O Children of Time ! And now, as I join 
your hands, I betroth your souls.” 

Rapture unalloyed and unprophetic, born of love deep 
and pure, shone in the eyes of Harold, as he clasped the 
hand of his promised bride. But an involuntary and 
mysterious shudder passed over Edith’s frame, and she 
leant close, close, for support upon Harold’s breast 
And, as if by a vision, there rose distinct in her memory, 
a stern brow, a form of power and terror — the brow and 


HAROLD. 


273 


the form of him who but once again in her waking life 
the Prophetess had told her she should behold. The 
vision passed away in the warm clasp of those protect- 
ing arms ; and looking up into Harold’s face, she there 
beheld the mighty and deep delight that transfused itself 
at once into her own soul 

Then Hilda, placing one hand over their heads, and 
raising the other towards heaven, all radiant with burst- 
ing stars, said in her deep and thrilling tones, — 
“Attest the betrothal of these young hearts, 0 ye 
Powers that draw nature to nature by spells which no 
galdra can trace, and have wrought in the secrets of 
creation no mystery so perfect as love. — Attest it, thou 
temple, thou altar ! — attest it, 0 sun and 0 air ! While 
the forms are divided, may the souls cling together — sor- 
row with sorrow, and joy with- joy. And when, at length, 
bride and bridegroom are one, — 0 stars, may the trouble 
with which ye are charged have exhausted its burthen ; 
may no danger molest, and no malice disturb, but, over 
the marriage-bed, shine in peace, O ye stars ! ” 

Up rose the moon. May’s nightingale called its mate 
from the breathless boughs ; and so Edith and Harold 
were betrothed by the grave of the son of Cerdic. And 
from the line of Cerdic had come, since Ethelbert, all the 
Saxon kings who with sword and with sceptre had reigned 
over Saxon England. 


23 * 


0 


BOOK SIXTH. 


AMBITION. 


CHAPTER I. 

There was great rejoicing in England. King Edward 
had been induced to send Aired the prelate* to the court 
of the German Emperor, for his kinsman and namesake, 
Edward Atheling, the son of the great Ironsides. In his 
childhood, this prince, with bis brother Edmund, had 
been committed by Canute to the charge of his vassal, 
the King of Sweden ; and it has been said (though with- 
out sufficient authority), that Canute’s design was, that 
they should be secretly made away with. The King of 
Sweden, however, forwarded the children to the court of 
Hungary ; they were there honorably reared and received. 
Edmund died young, without issue. Edward married a 
daughter of the German Emperor, and during the com- 
motions in England, and the successive reigns of Harold 
Harefoot, Hardicanute, and the Confessor, had remained 
orgotten in his exile, until now suddenly recalled to 


* Chron. Knyghton. 


( 274 ) 


II A R n L D . 


2*5 


England as the heir presumptive of his childless name- 
sake. He arrived with Agatha his wife, one infant son. 
Edgar, and two daughters, Margaret and Christina. 

Great were the rejoicings. The vast crowd that had 
followed the royal visitors in their processiou to the old 
London palace (not far from St. Paul’s), in which they 
were lodged, yet swarmed through the streets, when two 
thegns who had personally accompanied the Atheling 
from Dover, and had just taken leave of him, now emerged 
from the palace, and with some difficulty made their way 
thiough the crowded streets. 

The one in the dress and short hair imitated from the 
Norman, was our old friend Godrith, whofti the reader 
may remember as the rebuker of Taillefer, and the friend 
of Mallet de Graville ; the other, in a plain linen Saxon 
tunic, and the gonna worn on state occasions, to which 
he seemed unfamiliar, but with heavy gold bracelets on 
his arms, long haired and bearded, was Yebba, the 
Kentish thegn, who had served as nuUcius from Godwin 
to Edward. 

“ Troth and faith ! ” said Yebba, wiping his brow, 
“ this crowd is enow to make plain man stark wode. I 
would not live in London for all the gauds in the gold- 
smiths’ shops, or all the treasures in King Edward’s 
vaults. My tongue is as parched as a hay-field in the 
weyd-month.* Holy Mother be blessed ! I see a cumen- 
hus f open ; let us in and refresh ourselves with a horn 
of ale,” 


* Weyd month . Meadow-month, June. f Cumen-htis. Tavern. 


276 


HAROLD. 


“Kay, friend,” quoth Godrith, with a slight disdain, 
“ such are not the resorts of men of our rank. Tarry 
yet awhile, till we arrive near the bridge by the river 
side ; there, indeed, you will find worthy company and 
dainty cheer.” 

“Well, well, I am at your best, Godrith,” said the 
Kent man, sighing : “my wife and my sons will be sure 
to ask me what sights I have seen, and I may as well 
know from thee the last tricks and ways of this hurly- 
burly town.” 

Godrith, who was master of all the fashions in the 
reign of our lord King Edward, smiled graciously, and 
the two proceeded in silence, only broken by the sturdy 
Kent man’s exclamations ; now of anger when rudely 
jostled, now of wonder and delight when, amidst the 
throng, he caught sight of a glee-man, with his bear or 
monkey, who took advantage of some space near con- 
vent garden, or Roman ruin, to exhibit his craft; till 
they gained a long low row of booths, most pleasantly 
situated to the left of this side London bridge, and which 
was appropriated to the celebrated cook-shops, that even 
to the time of Fitzstephen retained their fame and their 
fashion. 

Between the shops and the river, was a space of grass 
worn brown and bare by the feet of the customers, with 
a few clipped trees with vines trained from one to the 
other in arcades, under cover of which were set tables 
and settles. The place was thickly crowded, and but for 
Godrith’s popularity amongst the attendants, they might 
have found it difficult to obtain accommodation. How- 


IIAROLD. 


277 


ever, a new table was soon brought forth, placed close 
by the cool margin of the water, and covered in a trice 
with tankards of hippocras, pigment, ale, and some Gas- 
con, as well as British wines ; varieties of the delicious 
cake-bread for which England was then renowned ; whi le 
viands strange to the honest eye and taste of the wealthy 
Kent man, were served on spits. 

“ What bird is this ? ” said he, grumbling. 

“ Oh, enviable man, it is a Phrygian attagen * that 
thou art about to taste for the first time ; and when thou 
hast recovered that delight, I commend to thee a Moorish 
compound, made of eggs and roes of carp from the old 
Southweorc stewponds, which the cooks here dress no- 
tably.” 

“Moorish ! — Holy Virgin 1” cried Vebba, with his 
mouth full of the Phrygian attagen, “ how came anything 
Moorish in our Christian island ? ” 

Godrith laughed outright. 

“ Why, our cook here is Moorish ; the best singers in 
London are Moors. Look yonder I see those grave 
comely Saracens ? ” 

“ Comely, quotha, burnt and black as a charred pine* 
pole!” grunted Vebba; “well, who are they?” 

“Wealthy traders; thanks to whom, our pretty maids 
have risen high in the market. ”f 

* Fitzstephen. 

•j- William of Malmesbury speaks with just indignation of the 
Anglo-Saxon custom of selling female servants, either to publio 
prostitution or foreign slavery. 

I.— 24 


278 


HAROLD 


“More the shame,” said the Kent man ; “that selling 
of English youth to foreign masters, whether male or 
female, is a blot on the Saxon name.’* 

“ So saith Harold our Earl, and so preaeh the monks,” 
returned Godrith. “ But thou, my good friend, who art 
fond of all things that our ancestors did, and hast sneered 
more than once at my Norman robe and cropped hair. 
thou shouldst not be the one to find fault with what Our 
fathers have done since the days of Cerdic.” 

“Hem,” said the Kent man, a little perplexed, “cer- 
tainly old manners are the best, and I suppose there is 
some good reason for this practice, which I, who never 
trouble myself about matters that concern me not, do not 
see.” 

“Well, Yebba, and how likest thou the Atheling ? he 
is of the old line,” said Godrith. 

Again the Kent man looked perplexed, and had re- 
course to the ale, which he preferred to all more delicate 
liquor, before he replied — 

“ Why, he speaks English worse than King Edward ! 
and as for his boy Edgar, the child can scarce speak Eng- 
lish at all. And then their German carles and cnehts ! 
— An’ I had known what manner of folk they were, I had 
not spent my mancuses in running from my homestead to 
give them the welcome. But they told me that Harold 
the good Earl had made the king send for them ; and 
whatever the earl counselled, must I thought be wise, and 
to the weal of sweet England.” 

“ That is true,” said Godrith with earnest emphasis, 


HAROLD. 


for, with all his affectation of Norman manners, he was 
thoroughly English at heart, and was now among the 
staunchest supporters of Harold, who had become no less 
the pattern and pride of the young nobles than the dar- 
ling of the humbler population, — “that is true — and 
Harold showed us his noble English heart when he so 
urged the king to his own loss.” 

As Godrith thus spoke, nay, from the first mention of 
Harold’s name, two men richly clad, but with their bon- 
nets drawn far over their brows, and their long gonnas 
so worn as to hide their forms, who were seated at a table 
behind Godrith and had thus escaped his attention, had 
paused from their wine-cups, and they now listened with 
much earnestness to the conversation that followed. 

“How to the earl’s loss?” asked Yebba. 

“ Why, simple thegn,” answered Godrith, “ why, sup- 
pose that Edward had refused to acknowledge the Athel- 
ing as his heir, suppose the Atheling had remained in the 
German court, and our good king died suddenly, — who, 
thinkest thou, could succeed to the English throne ?” 

“ Marry, I have never thought of that at all,” said the 
Kent man, scratching his head. 

“ No, nor have the English generally ; yet whom could 
we choose but Harold ? ” 

A sudden start from one of the listeners was checked 
by the warning finger of the other ; and the Kent man 
exclaimed — 

“ Body o’ me 1 But we have never chosen king (save 
the Danes) out of the line of Cerdic. These be new 


280 


HAROLD. 


cranks, with a » jngeance : we shall be choo sing German, 
or Saracen, or Norman next.” 

“ Out of the line of Cerdic 1 but that line is gone, 
root and branch, save the Atheling, and he, thou seest, 
is more German than English. Again I say, failing the 
Atheling, whom could we choose but Harold, brother-in- 
law to the king ; descended through Githa from the royal- 
ties of the Norse, the head of all armies under the Herr- 
ban, the chief who has never fought without victory, yet 
who has always preferred conciliation to conquest — the 
Arst counsellor in the Witan — the first man in the realm 
— who but Harold? answer me, staring Vebba.” 

“ I take in thy words slowly,” said the Kent man, 
shaking his head, “ and after all, it matters little who is 
king, so he be & good one. Yes, I see now that the earl 
was a just and generous man when he made the king 
send for the Atheling. Drink-heel 1 long life to them 
both !” 

“ Was-heel,” answered Godrith, draining his hippocras 
to Vebba’s more potent ale. “ Long life to them both ! 
may Edward the Atheling reign, but Harold the Earl 
rule 1 Ah, then, indeed, we may sleep without fear of 
fierce Algar and still fiercer Gryffyth the Walloon — who 
bow, it is true, are stilled for the moment, thanks t:> 
Harold — but not more still than the smooth -raters in 
Gwyned, that lie just above the rush of a torrent.” 

“So little news hear I,” said Vebba, “and in Kent so 
little are we plagued with the troubles elsewhere (for 
there Harold governs us, and the hawks come not where 


HAROLD. 


281 


the eagles hold eyrie !) — that I will thank thee to tell me 
something about our old earl for a year,* Algar the rest- 
less, and this Gryffyth the Welch king, so that I may 
seem a wise man when I go back to my homestead.” 

“ Why, thou knowest at least that Algar and Harold 
were ever opposed in the Witan, and hot words thou hast 
heard pass between them?” 

“ Marry, yes ! But Algar was as little match for Earl 
Harold in speech as in sword-play.” 

Now again one of the listeners started (but it was not 
the same as the on: before), and muttered an angry ex- 
clamation. 

“Yet is he a troublesome foe,” said Godrith, who did 
not hear the sound Yebba had provoked, “and a thorn 
in the side both of the earl and of England ; and sorrow 
ful for both England and earl was it, that Harold refused 
to marry Aldyth, as it is said his father, wise Godwin, 
counselled and wished.” 

“Ah ! but I have heard scops and harpers sing pretty 
songs that Harold loves Edith the Fair, a wondrous 
proper maiden, they say ! ” 

“ It is true ; and for the sake of his love, he played ill 
for his ambition.” 

“ I like him the better for that,” said the honest Kent 
man : “ why does he not marry the girl at once ? she 
hath broad lands I know, for they run from the Sussex 
shore into Kent.” 

* It will be remembered that Algar governed Wessex, which 
principality included Kent, during the year of Godwin’s outlawry 

24 * 


HAROLD. 


<282 

“But they are cousins live times removed, and the 
Church forbids the marriage ; nevertheless Harold lives 
only for Edith ; they have exchanged the true-lofa,* and 
it is whispered that Harold hopes the Atheling, when he 
comes to be king, will get him the pope’s dispensation. 
But to return to Algar ; in a day most unlucky he gave 
his daughter to Gryffyth, the most turbulent sub-king the 
land ever knew, who, it is said, will not be content till he 
has won all Wales for himself without homage or service, 
and the Marches to boot. Some letters between him and 
Earl Algar, to whom Harold had secured the earldom 
of the East Angles, were discovered, and in a Witan at 
Winchester thou wilt doubtless have heard (for thou 
didst not) I know, leave thy lands to attend it), that 
Algar was outlawed. ” 

* Trulo/a, from which comes our popular corruption “ true 
lover’s knot,” & Veter i Danico trulofa, i. e. /idem, do, to pledge faith. 
— Hickes’ Thesaur. 

“A knot, among the ancient northern nations, seems to have 
been the emblem of love, faith, and friendship.” — Brande’s Pop. 
Antiq. 

f The Saxon Chronicle contradicts itself as to Algar’s outlawry, 
stating in one passage that he was outlawed without any kind of 
guilt, and in another that he was outlawed as swike , or traitor, and 
that he made a confession of it before all the men there gathered. 
His treason, however, seems naturally occasioned by his close con- 
nection with Grytfyth, and proved by his share in that king’s re- 
bellion. Some of our historians have unfairly assumed that his out- 
lawry was at Harold ’ b instigation. Of this there is not only ho 
proof, but one of the best authorities among the chroniclers saya 
just the contrary, — that Harold did all he could to intercede for 
him ; and it is certain that he was fairly tried and condemned by 
t) c Witan, and afterwards restored by the concurrent articles of 


HAROLD. 


283 


“ Oh, yes, these are stale tidings ; I heard thus much 
from a palmer — and then Algar got ships from the 
Irish, sailed to North Wales, and beat Rolf, the Norman 
Earl, at Hereford. Oh yes, I heard that, and,” added the 
Kent man laughing, “ I was not sorry to hear that my old 
Earl Algar, since he is a good and true Saxon, beat the 
cowardly Norman, — more shame to the king for giving 
a Norman the ward of the Marches ! ” 

“ It was a sore defeat to the king and to England,” 
said Godrith, gravely. 4t The great Minster of Hereford, 
built by King Athelstan, was burned and sacked by the 
Welch ; and the Crown itself was in danger, when Harold 
came up at the head of the Fyrd. Hard is it to tell the 
distress and the marching and the camping, and the 
travail, and destruction of men, and also of horses, which 
the English endured * * till Harold came ; and then, 
luckily, came also the good old Leofric, and Bishop 
Aired, the peace-maker, and so strife w'as patched up — 
Gryffyth swore oaths of faith to King Edward, and Algar 
was inlawed; and there for the nonce rests the matter 
now. But well I ween that Gryffyth will never keep 
troth with the English, and that no hand less strong than 
Harold’s can keep in check a spirit as fiery as Algar’s : 
herefore did I wish that Harold might be king.” 

“ Well,” quoth the honest Kent man, “ I hope, nevcr- 

agreement between Harold and Leofric. Harold’s policy with his 
own countrymen stands out very markedly prominent in the annals 
of the time ; it was invariably that of conciliation. 

* Saxon Chron., verbatim. 


284 


HAROLD. 


theless, that Alg v ar will sow his wild oats, and leave the 
Walloons to grow the hemp for their own halters ; for, 
though he is not of the height of our Harold, he is a true 
Saxon, and we liked him well enow when he ruled us. 
And how is our earl’s brother, Tostig, esteemed by the 
Northmen ? It must be hard to please those who had 
Siward of the strong arm for their earl before.” 

“ Why, at first, when (at Siward’s death in the wars 
for young Malcolm) Harold secured to Tostig the North- 
umbrian earldom, Tostig went by his brother’s counsel 
and ruled well and won favor. Of late I hear that the 
Northmen murmur. Tostig is a man indeed dour and 
haughty.” 

After a few more questions and answers on the news 
of the day, Yebba rose and said, — 

“ Thanks for thy good fellowship ; it is time for me 
now to be jogging homeward. I left my ceorls and 
horses on the other side the river, and must go after 
them. And now forgive me my bluntness, fellow thegn, 
but ye young courtiers have plenty of need for your 
mancuses, and when a plain countryman like me comes 
sight-seeing, he ought to stand payment ; wherefore,” 
here he took from his belt a great leathern purse, “ where- 
fore, as these outlandish birds and heathenish puddings 
must be dear fare ” 

“ How ! ” said Godrith, reddening, “ thinkest thou so 
meanly of us thegns of Middlesex, as to deem we cannot 
entertain thus humbly a friend from a distance ? Ye 


HAROLD. 


285 


Kent men I know are rich. But keep your pennies to 
buy stuffs for your wife, my friend. ,, 

The Kent man, seeing he had displeased his compan- 
ion, did not press his liberal offer, — put up his purse, 
and suffered Godrith to pay the reckoning. Then, as the 
two thegns shook hands, he said, — 

“But I should like to have said a kind word or so to 
Earl Harold — for he was too busy and too great for me 
to come across him in the old palace yonder. I have a 
mind to go back and look for him at his own house.” 

“You will not find him there,” said Godrith, “for I 
know that as soon as he hath finished his conference with 
the Atheling, he will leave the city ; and I shall be at his 
own favorite manse over the water at sunset, to take 
orders for repairing the forts and dykes on the Marches. 
You can tarry awhile and meet us; you know his old 
lodge in the forest land ? ” 

“ Nay, I must be back and at home ere night, for all 
things go wrong when the master is away. Yet, indeed, 
my good wife will scold me for not having shaken hands 
with the handsome earl.” 

“Thou shalt not come under that sad infliction,” said 
the good-natured Godrith, who was pleased with the 
thegn’s devotion to Harold, and who, knowing the great 
weight which Yebba (homely as he seemed) carried in 
his important county, was politically anxious that the 
earl should humor so sturdy a friend, — “ Thou shalt not 
60ur thy wife’s kiss, man. For look you, as you ride 


286 


HAROLD. 


back you will pass by a large old house, with broken 
columns at the back.” 

“ I have marked it well,” said the thegn, “ when I have 
gone that way, with a heap of queer stones, on a little 
hillock, which they say the witches or the Britons heaped 
together.” 

“The same. When Harold leaves London, I trow 
well towards that house will his road wend ; for there 
lives Edith the swan’s neck, with her awful grandma, the 
Wicca. If thou art there a little after noon, depend on 
it thou wilt see Harold riding that way.” 

“Thank thee heartily, friend Godrith,” said Yebba, 
taking his leave, “ and forgive my bluntness if I laughed 
at thy cropped head, for I see thou art as good a Saxon 
as ere a frankling of Kent — and so the saints keep thee.” 

Y ebba then strode briskly over the bridge ; and God- 
rith, animated by the wine he had drunk, turned gaily 
on his heel to look amongst the crowded tables for some 
chance friend, with whom to while away an hour or so, 
at the games of hazard then in vogue. 

Scarce had he turned, when the two listeners, who, 
having paid their reckoning, had moved under shade of 
one of the arcades, dropped into a boat which they had 
summoned to the margin, by a noiseless signal, and were 
rowed over the water. They preserved a silence which 
seemed thoughtful and gloomy until they reached the 
opposite shore : then, one of them, pushing back his 
bonnet, showed the sharp and haughty features of Algar. 

“Well, friend of Gryffyth,” said he, with a bitter ac- 


HAROLD. 


m 


cent, “thou hearest that Earl Harold counts little on 
the oaths of thy king, that he intends to fortify the 
Marches against him ; and thou hearest also, that nought 
save a life, as fragile as the reed which thy feet are 
trampling, stands between the throne of England and 
the only Englishman who could ever have humbled my 
son-in-law to swear oath of service to Edward.” 

“ Shame upon that hour,” said the other, whose speech, 
as well as the gold collar round his neck, and the peculiar 
fashion of his hair, betokened him to be Welch. “Little 
did I think that the great son of Llewellyn, whom our 
bards had set above Roderic Mawr, would ever have ac- 
knowledged the sovereignty of the Saxon over the hilla 
of Cymry.” 

“ Tut, Meredydd,” anwered Algar, “ thou knowest well 
that no Cymrian ever deems himself dishonored by break- 
ing faith with the Saxon; and we shall yet see the lions 
of Gryffyth scaring the sheep-folds of Hereford.” 

“ So be it,” said Meredydd, fiercely. “And Harold 
shall give to his Atheling the Saxon land, shorn at least 
of the Cymrian kingdom.” 

“ Meredydd,” said Algar, with a seriousness that 
seemed almost solemn, “no Atheling will live to rule 
these realms ! Thou knowest that I was one of the first 
to hail the news of his coming — I hastened to Dover to 
meet him. Methought I saw death writ on his counte- 
nance, and I bribed the German leach who attends him 
to answer my questions ; the Atheling knows it not, but 
he bears within him the seeds of a mortal complaint. 


288 


HAROLD. 


Thou wottest well what cause I have to hate Earl Ha- 
rold ; and were I the only man to oppose his way to the 
throne, he should not ascend it but over my corpse. But 
when Godrith, his creature, spoke, I felt that he spoke 
the truth ; and, the Atheling dead, on no head but Ha- 
rold’s can fall the crown of Edward.” 

“Ha!” said the Cymrian chief, gloomily; “thinkest 
thou so indeed ? ” 

“I think it not; I know it. And for that reason, 
Meredydd, we must wait not till he wields against us all 
the royalty of England. As yet, while Edward lives, 
there is hope. For the king loves to spend wealth on 
relics and priests, and is slow when the mancuses are 
wanted for fighting-men. The king too, poor man ! is 
not so ill pleased at my outbursts as he would fain have 
it thought ! he thinks, by pitting earl against earl, that 
he himself is the stronger.* While Edward lives, there- 
fore, Harold’s arm is half-crippled ; wherefore, Meredydd, 
ride thou, with good speed, back to King Gryffyth, and 
tell him all I have told thee. Tell him that our time to 
strike the blow and renew the war will be amidst the 
dismay and confusion that the Atheling’s death will occa- 
sion. Tell him, that if we can entangle Harold himself 
in the Welch defiles, it will go hard but what we shall 
$nd some arrow or dagger to pierce the heart of the in- 
vader. And were Harold but slain — who then would be 
king in England ? The line of Cerdic gone — the house 


* Hume. 


HAROLD. 


289 


of Godwin lost in Earl Harold, (for Tostig is hated in 
his own domain, Leofwine is too light, and Gurth is too 
saintly for such ambition) — who then, I say, can be king 
in England but Algar, the heir of the great Leofric ? 
And I, as king of England, will set all Cymry free, and 
restore to the realm of Gryffyth the shires of Hereford 
and Worcester. Ride fast, 0 Meredydd, and heed well 
all I have said.” 

“ Dost thou promise and swear, that wert thou king 
of England, Cymry should be free from all service?” 

“ Free as air, free as under Arthur and Uther; I swear 
it. And remember well how Harold addressed the Cym- 
rian chiefs, when he accepted Gryfifyth’s oaths of ser- 
vice.” 

“ Remember it — ay,” cried Meredydd, his face lighting 
up with intense ire and revenge ; “the stern Saxon said, 
* Heed well, ye chiefs of Cymry, and thou Gryffyth the 
king, that if again ye force, by ravage and rapine, by 
sacrilege and raurther, the majesty of England to enter 
your borders, duty must be done : God grant that your 
Cymrian lion may leave us in peace — if not, it is mercy 
to human life that bids us cut the talons and draw the 
fangs.’ ” 

“ Harold, like all calm and mild men, ever says less 
than he means,” returned Algar; “and were Harold 
king, small pretext would he need for cutting the talons, 
and drawing the fangs.” 

“It is well,” said Meredydd, with a fierce smile. “I 
I. —25 t 


290 


HAROLD. 


will now go to my men who are lodged yonder ; and it is 
better that thou shouldst not be seen with me.” 

“ Right ; so St. David be with you — and forget not a 
word of my message to Gryffyth, my son-in-law.” 

“ Not a word,” returned Meredydd, as with a wave 
of his hand he moved towards an hostelry, to which, as 
kept by one of their own countrymen, the Welch habit- 
ually resorted in the visits to the capital which the va- 
rious intrigues and dissensions in their unhappy land 
made frequent. 

The chief’s train, which consisted of ten men, all of 
high birth, were not drinking in the tavern — for sorry 
customers to mine host were the abstemious Welch. 
Stretched on the grass under the trees of an orchard that 
backed the hostelry, and utterly indifferent to all the 
rejoicings that animated the population of Southwark 
and London, they were listening to a wild song of the 
old hero-days from one of their number ; and round them 
grazed the rough shagged ponies which they had used 
for their journey. Meredydd, approaching, gazed round, 
and seeing no stranger was present, raised his hand to 
hush the song, and then addressed his countrymen briefly 
in Welch, — briefly, but with a passion that was evident 
in his flashing eyes and vehement gestures. The passion 
was contagious ; they all sprang to their feet with a low 
but fierce cry, and in a few moments they had caught and 
saddled their diminutive palfreys, while one of the band, 
who seemed singled out by Meredydd, sallied forth alone 
from the orchard, and took his way, on foot, to the bridge. 


HAROLD. 


291 


He did not tarry there long ; at the sight of a single 
horseman, whom a shout of welcome, on that swarming 
thoroughfare, proclaimed to be Earl Harold, the Welch- 
man turned, and with a fleet foot regained his com- 
panions. 

Meanwhile Harold, smilingly, returned the greetings 
he received, cleared the bridge, passed the suburbs, and 
soon gained the wild forest land that lay along the 
great Kentish road. He rode somewhat slowly, for he 
was evidently in deep thought ; and he had arrived about 
halt-way towards Hilda’s house, when he heard behind 
quick pattering sounds, as of small unshod hoofs : he 
turned and saw the Welchmen at the distance of some 
fifty yards. But at that moment there passed, along the 
road in front, several persons bustling into London to 
share in the festivities of the day. This seemed to dis- 
concert the Welch in the rear ; and, after a few whispered 
words, they left the high road and entered the forest- 
land. Various groups from time to time continued to 
pass along the thoroughfare. But still, ever through the 
glades, Harold caught glimpses of the riders : now dis- 
tant, now near. Sometimes he heard the snort of their 
small horses, and saw a fierce eye glaring through the 
bushes; then, as at the sight or sound of approaching 
passengers, the riders wheeled, and shot off through the 
brakes. 

The Earl’s suspicions were aroused; for (though he 
knew of no enemy to apprehend, and the extreme severity 
of the laws against robbers made the high-roads much 


292 


HAROLD. 


safer in the latter days of the Saxon domination than 
they were for centuries under that of the subsequent 
dynasty, when Saxon thegns themselves had turned kings 
of the greenwood,) the various insurrections in Edward’s 
reign had necessarily thrown upon society many turbulent 
disbanded mercenaries. 

Harold was unarmed, save the spear which, even on 
occasions of state, the Saxon noble rarely laid aside, and 
the ateghar in his belt; and, seeing now that the road 
had become deserted, he set spurs to his horse, and was 
just in sight of the Druid Temple, when a javelin whizzed 
close by his breast, and another transfixed his horse, 
which fell head-foremost to the ground. 

The earl gained his feet in an instant, and that haste 
was needed to save his life ; for while he rose ten swords 
flashed around him. The Welchmen had sprung from 
their palfreys as Harold’s horse fell. Fortunately for 
him, only two of the party bore javelins (a weapon which 
the Welch wielded with deadly skill) and, those already 
wasted, they drew their short swords, which were pro- 
bably imitated from the Romans, and rushed upon him 
in simultaneous onset. Versed in all the weapons of the 
time, with his right hand seeking by his spear to keep 
off the rush, with the ateghar in his left parrying the 
strokes aimed at him, the brave earl transfixed the first 
assailant, and sore wounded the next ; but his tunic was 
dyed red with three gashes, and his sole chance of life 
was in the power yet left him to force his way through 
the ring. Dropping his spear, shifting his ateghar into 


HAROLD. 


293 


the right hand, wrapping round his left arm his gonna as 
a shield, he sprang fiercely on the onslaught, and on the 
flashing swords. Pierced to the heart fell one of his 
foes — dashed to the earth another — from the hand of a 
third (dropping his own ateghar) he wrenched the sword 
Loud rose Harold’s cry for aid, and swiftly he strode 
towards the hillock, turning back, and striking as he 
turned ; and again fell a foe, and again new blood oozed 
through his own garb. At that moment his cry was 
echoed by a shriek so sharp and so piercing that it 
startled the assailants, it arrested the assault ; &nd, ere 
the unequal strife could be resumed, a woman was in the 
midst of the fray ; — a woman stood dauntless between 
the earl and his foes. 

“ Back ! Edith. Oh, God ! Back, back ! ” cried the 
earl, recovering all his strength in the sole fear which 
that strife had yet stricken into his bold heart ; and draw- 
ing Edith aside with his strong arm, he again confronted 
the assailants 

“Die !” cried, in the Cymrian tongue, the fiercest of 
the foes, whose sword had already twice drawn the earl’s 
blood ; “ die, that Cymry may be free ! ” 

Meredydd sprang, with him sprang the survivors of 
his band ; and, by a sudden movement, Edith had thrown 
herself on Harold’s breast, leaving his right arm free, but 
sheltering his form with her own. 

At that sight every sword rested still in air. These 
Cymrians, hesitating not at the murder of the man whose 
death seemed to their false virtue a sacrifice due to their 
25 * 


294 


HAROLD. 


hopes of freedom, were still the descendants of Heroes, 
and the children of noble Song, and their swords were 
harmless against a woman. The same pause which saved 
the life of Harold, saved that of Meredydd, for the 
Cymrian’s lifted sword had left his breast defenceless, 
and Harold, despite his wrath, and his fears for Edith’ 
touched by that sudden forbearance, forbore himself the 
blow. 

“ Why seek ye my life ? ” said he. “ Whom in broad 
England hath Harold wronged ?” 

That speech broke the charm, revived the suspense of 
vengeance. With a sudden aim, Meredydd smote at 
the head which Edith’s embrace left unprotected. The 
sword shivered on the steel of that which parried the 
stroke, and the next moment, pierced to the heart, Mere- 
dydd fell to the earth, bathed in his gore. Even as he 
fell, aid was at hand. The ceorls in the Roman house 
had caught the alarm, and were hurrying down the knoll, 
with arms snatched in haste, while a loud whoop broke 
from the forest land hard by ; and a troop of horse, 
headed by Yebba, rushed through the bushes and brakes. 
Those of the Welch still surviving, no longer animated 
by their fiery chief, turned on the instant, and fled with 
that wonderful speed of foot which characterized their 
active race; calling, as they fled, to their Welch pigmy 
steeds, which, snorting loud, and lashing out, came at 
once to the call. Seizing the nearest at hand, the fugi- 
tives sprang to selle, while the animals unchosen, paused 
by the corpses of their former riders, neighing piteously, 


HAROLD. 


295 


and shaking their long manes. And then, after wheeling 
round and round the coming horsemen, with many a 
plunge, and lash, and savage cry, they darted after their 
companions, and disappeared amongst the bush-wood. 
Some of the Kentish men gave chase to the fugitives, 
but in vain ; for the nature of the ground favored flight. 
Yebba, and the rest, now joined by Hilda’s lithsmen, 
gained the spot where Harold, bleeding fast, yet strove 
to keep his footing, and, forgetful of his own wounds, 
was joyfully assuring himself of Edith’s safety. Yebba 
dismounted, and recognizing the earl, exclaimed : — 

“ Saints in heaven ! are we in time ? You bleed — you 
faint! — Speak, Lord Harold. How fares it?” 

“ Blood enow yet left here for our merrie England ! ” 
said Harold, with a smile. But as he spoke, his head 
drooped, and he was borne senseless into the house of 
Hilda. 


CHAPTER II. 

The Yala met them at the threshold, and testified so 
little surprise at the sight of the bleeding and uncon- 
scious earl, that Yebba, who had heard strange tales of 
Hilda’s unlawful arts, half-suspected that those wild-look- 
ing foes, with their uncanny diminutive horses, were imps 
conjured by her to punish a wooer to her grandchild — 
who had been perhaps too successful in the wooing. And 


296 


HAROLD 


fears so reasonable were not a little increased when 
Hilda, after leading the way up the steep ladderto the 
chamber in which Harold had dreamed his fearful dream, 
bade them all depart, and leave the wounded man to her 
care. 

“ Hot so,” said Yebba, bluffly. “ A life like this is not 
to be left in the hands of woman, or wicca. I shall go 
back to the great town, and summon the earl’s own leach. 
And I beg thee to heed, meanwhile, that every head in 
this house shall answer for Harold’s.” 

The great Yala, and high-born Hleafdian, little ac- 
customed to be accosted thus, turned round abruptly, 
with so stern an eye and so imperious a mien, that even 
the stout Kent man felt abashed. She pointed to the 
door opening on the ladder, and said, briefly : - 

“ Depart ! Thy lord’s life hath been saved already, 
and by woman. Depart ! ” 

“ Depart, and fear not for the earl, brave and true 
friend in need,” said Edith, looking up from Harold’s 
pale lips, over wdiich she bent ; and her sweet voice so 
touched the good thegn, that, murmuring a blessing on 
her fair face, he turned and departed. 

Hilda then proceeded with a light and skilful hand, to 
examine the wounds of her patient. She opened the 
tunic, and washed away the blood from four gaping 
orifices on the breast and shoulders. And as she did so, 
Edith uttered a faint cry, and, falling on her knees, 
bowred her head over the drooping hand, and kissed it 
with stifling emotions, of which perhaps grateful joy was 


HAROLD. 


291 


the strongest ; for over the heart of Harold was punc- 
tured, after the fashion of the Saxons, a device — and 
that device was the knot of betrothal, and in the centre 
of the knot was graven the word “Edith.” 


CHAPTER III. 

Whether owing to Hilda’s runes, or to the merely 
human arts which accompanied them, the earl’s recovery 
was rapid, though the great loss of blood he had sus- 
tained left him awhile weak and exhausted. But, per- 
haps, he blessed the excuse which detained him still in 
the house of Hilda, and under the eyes of Edith. 

He dismissed the leach sent to him by Yebba, and 
confided, not without reason to the Yala’s skill. And 
how happily went his hours beneath the old Roman roof 1 

It was not without a superstition, more characterized, 
however, by tenderness than awe, that Harold learned 
that Edith had been undefinably impressed with a fore- 
boding of danger to her betrothed, and all that morning 
she had watched his coming from the old legendary hill. 
Was it not in that watch that his good Fylgia had saved 
his life ? 

Indeed, there seemed a strange truth in Hilda’s asser- 
tions, that in the form of his betrothed, his tutelary spirit 
lived and guarded. For smooth every step, and bright 
every day, in his career, since their troth had been 
25 * 


298 


HAROLD. 


plighted. Ju\d gradually the sweet superstition had 
mingled with human passion to hallow and refine it. 
There was a purity and a depth in the love of these two, 
which, if not uncommon in women, is most rare in men. 

Harold, in sober truth, had learned to look on Edith 
as on his better angel ; and, calming his strong manly 
heart in the hour of temptation, would have recoiled, as 
a sacrilege, from aught that could have sullied that image 
of celestial love. With a noble and sublime patience, of 
which perhaps only a character so thoroughly English in 
its habits of self-control' and steadfast endurance could 
have been capable, he saw the months and the years glide 
away, and still contented himself with hope ; — hope, the 
sole god-like joy that belongs to man ! 

As the opinion of an age influences even those who 
affect to despise it, so, perhaps, this holy and unselfish 
passion was preserved and guarded by that peculiar 
veneration for purity which formed the characteristic 
fanaticism of the last days of the Anglo-Saxons, — when 
still as Aldhelm had previously sung in Latin less barba- 
rous than perhaps any priest in the reign of Edward 
could command, — 

“Virginitas castam servans sine crimine carnem 
Coetera virtutem vincit prseconia laudi — 

Spiritus altithroni templum sibi vindicat almus ; ” * 


*“The chaste who blameless keep unsullied fame, 
Transcend all other worth, all other praise. 

The Spirit, high enthroned, has made their hearts 
His sacred temple.” 


HAROLD. 


290 


when, amidst a great dissoluteness of manners, alike com- 
mon to Church and laity, the opposite virtues were, as is 
invariable in such epochs of society, carried by the few 
purer natures into heroic extremes. “And as gold, the 
adorner of the world, springs from the sordid bosom of 
earth, so chastity, the image of gold, rose bright and un- 
sullied from the clay of human desire. ”* * 

And Edith, though yet in the tenderest flush of beauti- 
ful youth, had, under the influence of that sanctifying and 
scarce earthly affection, perfected her full nature as 
woman. She had learned so to live in Harold’s life, that 
— less, it seemed, by study than intuition — a knowledge 
graver than that which belonged to her sex and her time, 
seemed to fall upon her soul — fall as the sunlight falls on 
the blossoms, expanding their petals, and brightening the 
glory of their hues. 

Hitherto, living under the shade of Hilda’s dreary 
creed, Edith, as we have seen, had been rather Christian 
by name and instinct than acquainted with the doctrines 
of the Gospel, or penetrated by its faith. But the soul 
of Harold lifted her own out of the Valley of the Shadow 
up to the Heavenly Hill. For the character of their love 
was so pre-eminently Christian, so, by the circumstances 
that surrounded it — so by hope and self-denial, elevated 
out of the empire, not only of the senses, but even of that 

Sharon Turner’s Translation of Aldhelm, vol. iii. p. 366. It is 
curious to see how, even in Latin, the poet preserves the allitera- 
tions that characterized the Saxon muse. 

* Slightly altered from Aldheim. 


300 


HAROLD. 


sentiment which springs from them, and which made the 
sole refined and poetic element of the heathen’s love, that 
but for Christianity it would have withered and died. It 
required all the aliment of prayer ; it needed that patient 
endurance which comes from the soul’s consciousness of 
immortality ; it could not have resisted earth, but from 
the forts and armies it won from heaven. Thus from 
Harold might Edith be said to have taken her very soul. 
And with the soul, and through the soul, woke the mind 
from the mists of childhood. 

In the intense desire to be worthy the love of the fore- 
most man of her land ; to be the companion of his mind, 
as well as the mistress of his heart, she had acquired, she 
knew not how, strange stores of thought, and intelligence, 
and pure, gentle wisdom. In opening to her confidence 
his own high aims and projects, he himself was scarcely 
conscious how often he confided but to consult — how 
often and how insensibly she colored his reflections and 
shaped his designs. Whatever was highest and purest, 
that, Edith ever, as by instinct, beheld as the wisest. She 
grew to him like a second conscience, diviner than his 
own. Each, therefore, reflected virtue on the other, as 
planet illumines planet. 

All these years of probation, then, which might ,avo 
soured a love less holy, changed into weariness a love 
less intense, had only served to wed them more intimately 
soul to soul ; and in that spotless union what happiness 
there was ! what rapture in word and glance, and the 
slight, restrained, caress of innocence, - beyond all the 
transports love only human can bestow 1 


HAROLD. 


301 


CHAPTER IT. 

It was a bright still summer noon, when Harold sate 
with Edith amidst the columns of the Druid temple, a: d 
in the shade which those vast and mournful relics of a 
faith departed cast along the sward. And there, con- 
versing over the past, and planning the future, they had 
sate long, when Hilda approached from the house, and 
entering the circle, leant her arm upon the altar of the 
war-god, and gazing on Harold with a calm triumph in 
her aspect, said, — 

“ Did I not smile, son of Godwin, when, with thy short- 
sighted wisdom, thou didst think to guard thy land and 
secure thy love, by urging the monk-king to send over 
the seas for the Atheling ? Did I not tell thee, ‘ Thou 
dost right, for in obeying thy judgment thou art but the 
instrument of fate ; and the coming of the Atheling shall 
speed thee nearer to the ends of thy life, but not from 
the Atheling shalt thou take the crown of thy love, and 
not by the Atheling shall the throne of Athelstan be 
filled ? 1 ” 

“Alas,” said Harold, rising in agitation, “let me not 
hear of mischance to that noble prince. He seemed sick 
and feeble when I parted from him ; but joy is a great 
restorer, and the air of the native land gives quick health 
to the exile.” 

I. — 26 


302 


HAROLD. 


“Havk!” said Hilda, “you hear the passing bell for 
the soul of the son of Ironsides ! ” 

The mournful knell, as she spoke, came dull from the 
roofs of the city afar, borne to their ears by the exceed- 
ing stillness of the atmosphere. Edith crossed herself, 
and murmured a prayer according to the custom of the 
age ; then raising her eyes to Harold, she murmured, as 
she clasped her hands, — 

“Be not saddened, Harold; hope still.” 

“ Hope 1” repeated Hilda, rising proudly from her re- 
cumbent position, “ Hope ! in that knell from St. Paul’s, 
dull indeed is thine ear, 0 Harold, if thou hearest not 
the joy-bells that inaugurate a future king ! ” 

The earl started ; his eyes shot fire ; his breast heaved. 
“ Leave us, Edith,” said Hilda, in a low voice ; and 
after watching her grandchild’s slow reluctant steps de- 
scend the knoll, she turned to Harold, and leading him 
towards the grave-stone of the Saxon chief, said, — 
“Rememberest thou the spectre that rose from this 
mound ? — rememberest thou the dream that followed it ? ” 
“ The spectre, or deceit of mine eye, I remember well,” 
answered the earl ; “ the dream, not ; — or only in confused 
and jarring fragments.” 

“ I told thee then, that I could not unriddle the dream 
by the light of the momeni ; and that the dead who slept 
below never appeared to men, save for some portent of 
doom to the house of Cerdic. The portent is fulfilled ; 
the Heir of Cerdic is no more To whom appeared the 


HAROLD. 


303 


great Sein-laeca, but to him who shall lead a new race 
of kings to the Saxon throne ! ” 

Harold breathed hard, and the color mounted bright 
and glowing to his cheek and brow. 

“I cannot gainsay thee, Tala. Unless, despite all 
conjecture, Edward should be spared to earth till the 
Atheling’s infant son acquires the age when bearded men 
will acknowledge a chief,* I look round in England for 
the coming king, and all England reflects but mine own 
image.” 

His head rose erect as he spoke, and already the brow 
seemed august, as if circled by the diadem of the Basileus. 

“And if it be so,” he added, “ I accept that solemn 
trust, and England shall grow greater in my greatness.” 

“The flame breaks at last from the smouldering fuel,” 
cried the Yala, “and the hour I so long foretold to thee 
hath come 1 ” 


* It is impossible to form any just view of the state of parties, 
and the position of Harold in the latter portions of this work, un- 
less the reader will bear constantly in mind the fact that, from the 
earliest period, minors were set aside as a matter of course, by the 
Saxon customs. Henry observes that, in the whole history of the 
Heptarchy, there is but one example of a minority, and that a short 
and unfortunate one ; so, in the later times, the great Alfred takes 
the throne, to the exclusion of the infant son of his elder brother. 
Only under very peculiar circumstances, backed, as in the case of 
Edmund Ironsides, by precocious talents and manhood on the part 
of the minor, were there exceptions to the general laws of succes- 
sion. The same rule obtained with the earldoms; the fame, power, 
and popularity of Siward could not transmit his Northumbrian 
earldom to his infant son Waltheof, so gloomily renowned in o 
subsequent reign. 


304 


HAROLD. 


Harold answered not, for high and kindling emotions 
deafened him to all but the voice of a grand ambition, 
and the awakening joy of a noble heart. 

“And then — and then,” he exclaimed, “I shall need 
no mediator between nature and monkcraft ; — then, 0 
Edith, the life thou hast saved will indeed be thine ! ” 
lie paused, and it was a sign of the change that an 
ambition long repressed, but now rushing into the vent 
legitimately open to it, had already begun to work in the 
character hitherto so self-reliant, when he said in a low 
voice, “ But that dream which hath so long lain locked, 
not lost, in my mind ; that dream of which I recall only 
vague remembrances of danger yet defiance, trouble yet 
triumph, — canst thou unriddle it, 0 Yala, into auguries 
of success ? ” 

“Harold,” answered Hilda, “thou didst hear at the 
close of thy dream, the music of the hymns that are 
chaunted at the crowning of a king, — and a crowned 
king shalt thou be ; yet fearful foes shall assail thee — 
foreshown in the shapes of the lion and raven, that came 
in menace over the blood-red sea. The two stars in the 
heaven betoken that the day of thy birth was also the 
birth-day of a foe, whose star is fatal to thine ; and they 
warn thee against a battle-field, fought on the day when 
those stars shall meet. Farther than this the mystery 
of thy dream escapes from my lore; — wouldstthou learn 
thyself, from the phantom that sent the dream ; — stand 
by my side at the grave of the Saxon hero, and I will 
summon the Scin-laeca to counsel the living. For what 


HAROLD. 305 

to the Yala the dead may deny, the soul of the brave on 
the brave may bestow ! ” 

Harold listened with a serious and musing attention, 
which his pride or his reason had never before accorded 
to the warnings of Hilda. But his sense was not yet 
fascinated by the voice of the charmer, and lie answered 
with his wonted smile, so sweet yet so haughty, — 

“ A hand outstretched to a crown should be armed for 
the foe ; and the eye that would guard the living should 
not be dimmed by the vapors that encircle the dead.” 


CHAPTER Y. 

But from that date changes, slight, yet noticeable and 
important, were at work both in the conduct and cha- 
racter of the great earl. 

Hitherto he had advanced on his career without calcu- 
lation ; and nature, not policy, had achieved his power. 
But henceforth he began thoughtfully to cement the 
foundations of his house, to extend the area, to strengthen 
the props. Policy now mingled with the justice that 
had made him esteemed, and the generosity that had won 
him love. Before, though by temper conciliatory, yet, 
through honesty, indifferent to the enmities he provoked, 
in his adherence to what his conscience approved, he now 
laid himself out to propitiate all ancient feuds, soothe all 
26 * 


u 


306 


HAROLD. 


jealousies, and convert foes into friends. He opened 
constant and friendly communication with his uncle 
Sweyn, King of Denmark ; he availed himself sedulously 
of all the influence over the Anglo-Danes which his 
mother’s birth made so facile. He strove also, and 
wisely, to conciliate the animosities which the Church 
had cherished against Godwin’s house ; he concealed his 
disdain of the monks and monk-ridden ; he showed him- 
self the Church’s patron and friend ; he endowed largely 
the convents, and especially one at Waltham, which had 
fallen into decay, though favorably known for the piety 
of its brotherhood. But if in this he played a part not 
natural to his opinions, Harold could not, even in simula- 
tion, administer to evil. The monasteries he favored 
were those distinguished for purity of life, for benevolence 
to the poor, for bold denunciation of the excesses of the 
great. He had not, like the Norman, the grand design 
of creating in the priesthood a college of learning, a 
school of arts ; such notions were unfamiliar in homely 
unlettered England. And Harold, though for his time 
and his land no mean scholar, would have recoiled from 
favoring a learning always made subservient to Rome ; 
always at once haughty and scheming, and aspiring to 
complete domination over both the souls of men and the 
thrones of kings. But his aim was, out of the elements 
he found in the natural kindliness existing between Saxon 
priest and Saxon flock, to rear a modest, virtuous, homely 
clergy, not above tender sympathy with an ignorant 
population. He selected as examples for his monastery 


HAROLD. 


307 


at Waltham, two low-born humble brothers, Osgood and 
Ailred ; the one known for the courage with which he 
had gone through the land, preaching to abbot and thegn 
the emancipation of the theowes, as the most meritorious 
act the safety of the soul could impose; the other, who, 
originally a clerk, had, according to the common custom 
of the Saxon clergy, contracted the bonds of marriage, 
and with some eloquence had vindicated that custom 
against the canons of Rome, and refused the offer of 
large endowments and thegn’s rank to put away his wife. 
But on the death of that spouse, he had adopted the 
cowl, and while still persisting in the lawfulness of mar- 
riage to the unmonastic clerks, had become famous for 
denouncing the open concubinage which desecrated the 
holy office, and violated the solemn vows, of many a proud 
prelate and abbot. 

To these two men (both of whom refused the abbacy 
of Waltham) Harold committed the charge of selecting 
the new brotherhood established there. And the monks 
of Waltham were honored as saints throughout the neigh- 
boring district, and cited as examples to all the Church. 

But though in themselves the new politic arts of 
Harold seemed blameless enough, arts they were, and as 
sud. they corrupted the genuine simplicity of his earlier 
nature. He had conceived for the first time an ambition 
apart from that of service to his country. It was no 
longer only to serve the land, it was to serve it as its 
ruler, that animated his heart and colored his thoughts. 
Expediencies began to dim to his conscience the health- 


308 


HAROLD. 


ful loveliness of Truth. And now, too, gradually, that 
empire which Hilda had gained over his brother Sweyn, 
began to sway this man, heretofore so strong in his 
sturdy sense. The future became to him a dazzling 
mystery, into which his conjectures plunged themselves 
more and more. He had not yet stood in the Runic 
circle and invoked the dead; but the spells were around 
his heart, and in his own soul had grown up the familiar 
demon. 

Still Edith reigned alone, if not in his thoughts, at 
least in his affections ; and perhaps it was the hope of 
conquering all obstacles to his marriage that mainly 
induced him to propitiate the Church, through whose 
agency the object he sought must be attained ; and still 
that hope gave the brightest lustre to the distant crown. 
But he who admits Ambition to the companionship of 
Love, admits a giant that outstrides the gentler footsteps 
of its comrade. 

Harold’s brow lost its benign calm. He became 
thoughtful and abstracted. He consulted Edith less, 
Hilda more. Edith seemed to him now not wise enough 
to counsel. The smile of his Fylgia, like the light of 
the star upon a stream, lit the surface, but could not 
pierce to the deep. 

Meanwhile, however, the policy of Harold throve and 
prospered. He had already arrived at that height, that 
the least effort to make power popular redoubled its 
extent. Gradually all voices swelled the chorus in his 
praise ; gradually men became familiar to the question, 


HAROLD. 


30b 

“ If Edward dies before Edgar, the grandson of Iron- 
sides, is of age to succeed, where can we find a king like 
Harold ? ” 

In the midst of this quiet but deepening sunshine of 
his fate, there burst a storm, which seemed destined 
either to darken his day or to disperse every cloud from 
the horizon. Algar, the only possible rival to his power 
— the only opponent no arts could soften — Algar, whose 
hereditary name endeared him to the Saxon laity, whose 
father’s most powerful legacy was the love of the Saxon 
Church, whose martial and turbulent spirit had only the 
more elevated him in the esteem of the warlike Danes in 
East Anglia, (the earldom in which he had succeeded 
Harold,) by his father’s death, lord of the great princi- 
pality of Mercia — availed himself of that new power to 
break out again into rebellion. Again he was outlawed, 
again he leagued with the fiery Gryffyth. All Wales was 
in revolt ; the Marches were invaded and laid waste. 
Rolfe, the feeble Earl of Hereford, died at this critical 
juncture, and the Normans and hirelings under him 
mutinied against other leaders ; a fleet of vikings from 
Norway ravaged the western coasts, and sailing up the 
Menai, joined the ships of Gryffyth, and the whole empire 
seemed menaced with dissolution, when Edward issued 
his Herrbann,. and Harold at the head of the royal armies 
marched on the foe. 

Dread and dangerous were those defiles of Wales; 
amidst them had been foiled or slaughtered all the 
warriors under Rolf the Norman ; no Saxon armies had 


310 


HAROLD. 


won laurels in the Cymrian’s own mountain home within 
the memory of man ; nor had any Saxon ships borne 
the palm from the terrible vikings of Norway. Fail, 
Harold, and farewell the crown ! — succeed, and thou 
hast on thy side the ultimam rationem regum (the last 
argument of kings), the heart of the army over which 
thou art chief. 


CHAPTER YI. 

It was one day in the height of summer that two 
horsemen rode slowly, and conversing with each other in 
friendly wise, notwithstanding an evident difference of 
rank and of nation, through the lovely country which 
formed the Marches of Wales. The younger of these 
men was unmistakably a Norman ; his cap only partially 
covered the head, which was shaven from the crown to 
the nape of the neck,* while in front the hair, closely 
cropped, curled short and thick round a haughty but 
intelligent brow. His dress fitted close to his shape, and 
was worn without mantle ; his leggings were curiously 
crossed in the fashion of a tartan, and on his heels were 
spurs of gold. He was wholly unarmed ; but behind 
him and his companion,- at a little distance, his war 
horse, completely caparisoned, was led by a single squire, 
mounted on a good Norman steed; while six Saxon 


Bayeux tapestry. 


HARCLD. 


311 


theowes, tnemselves on foot., conducted three sumpter- 
raules, somewhat heavily laden, not only with the armor 
of the Norman knight, but panniers containing rich 
robes, wines, and provender. At a few paces farther 
behind, marched a troop, light-armed, in tough hides, 
curiously tanned, with axes swung over their shoulders, 
and bows in their hands. 

The companion of the knight was as evidently a Saxon 
as the knight was unequivocally a Norman. His square, 
short features, contrasting the oval visage and aquiline 
profile of his close-shaven comrade, were half concealed 
beneath a bushy beard and immense moustache. His 
tunic, also, was of hide, and, tightened at the waist, fell 
loose to his knee ; while a kind of cloak, fastened to the 
right shoulder by a large round button, or broach, flowed 
behind and in front, but left both arms free. His cap 
differed in shape from the Norman’s, being round and full 
at the sides, somewhat in shape like a turban. His bare, 
brawny throat was. curiously punctured with sundry de- 
vices, and a verse from the Psalms. 

His countenance, though without the high and haughty 
brow, and the acute, observant eye of his comrade, had a 
pride and intelligence of its own — a pride somewhat sul- 
len, and an intelligence somewhat slow. 

“ My good friend, Sexwolf,” quoth the Norman in very 
tolerable Saxon, “ I pray you not so to misesteem us. 
After all, we Normans are of your own race : our fathers 
spoke the same language as yours.” 

“That may be,” said the Saxon, bluntly, “ and so did 


HAROLD 


312 

the Danes,, with little difference, when they burned our 
houses and cut our throats / 7 

“ Old tales, those ,’ 7 replied the knight, “ and I thank 
thee for the comparison ; for the Danes, thou seest, arc 
now settled amongst ye, peaceful subjects and quiet men, 
and in a few generations it will be hard to guess who 
comes from Saxon, who from Dane . 77 

“ We waste time, talking such matters,” returned the 
Saxon, feeling himself instinctively no match in argument 
for his lettered companion ; and seeing, with his native 
strong sense, that some ulterior object, though he guessed 
not what, lay hid in the conciliatory language of his com- 
panion ; “nor do I believe, Master Mallet or Gravel — 
forgive me if I miss of the right forms to address you — 
that Norman will ever love Saxon, or Saxon Norman ; 
so let us cut our words short. There stands the convent, 
at which you would like to rest and refresh yourself.” 

The Saxon pointed to a low, clumsy building of tim- 
ber, forlorn and decayed, close by a rank marsh, over 
which swarmed gnats, and all foul animalcules. 

Mallet de Graville, for it was he, shrugged his shoul- 
ders, and said, with an air of pity and contempt, 

“ I would, friend Sexwolf, that thou couldst but see the 
houses we build to God and his saints in our Normandy; 
fabrics of stately stone, on the fairest' sites. Our Countess 
Matilda hath a notable taste for the masonry ; and our 
workmen are the brethren of Lombardy, who know all 
the mysteries thereof.” 

“I pray thee, Dan-Norman,” cried the Saxon, “not to 


HAROLD. 


313 


put such ideas into the soft head of King Edward. We 
pay enow for the Church, though built but of timber; 
saints help us indeed, if it were builded of stone 1 ” 

The Norman crossed himself, as if he had heard some 
signal impiety, and then said, — 

“ Thou lovest not Mother Church, worthy Sexwolf ?” 
“ I was brought up,” replied the sturdy Saxon, “ to 
work and sweat hard, and I love not the lazy who de- 
vour my substance, and say, ‘the saints gave it them.’ 
Knowest thou not, Master Mallet, that one-third of all 
the lands of England is in the hands of the priests?” 

“ Hem ! ” said the acute Norman, who, with all his de- 
votion, could stoop to wring worldly advantage from each 
admission of his comrade; “then in this merrie England 
of thine, thou hast still thy grievances and cause of com- 
plaint ? ” 

“ Yea, indeed, and I trow it,” quoth the Saxon, even 
in that day a grumbler ; “ but I take it, the main differ- 
ence between thee and me is, that I can say what mis 
likes me out like a man ; and it would fare ill with thy 
limbs or thy life if thou wert as frank in the grim land 
of thy heretogh .” 

“ Now, Notre Dame- stop thy prating,” said the Nor- 
man, in high disdain, while his brow frowned and his eye 
epartded. “Strong judge and great captain as is Wil- 
liam the Norman, his barons and knights hold their heads 
high in his presence, and not a grievance weighs on the 
heart that we give not out with the lip.” 

“So have I heard,” said the Saxon, chuckling ; “I 
I.— 27 


314 


HAROLD. 


have heard, indeed, that ye thegns, or great men, are 
free enow, and plain-spoken. But what of the commons 
— the sixhaendmen, and the ceorls, master Norman ? Dare 
they speak as we speak of king and of law, of thegn and 
of captain ? ” 

The Norman wisely curbed the scornful “ No, indeed, ” 
that rushed to his lips, and said, all sweet and debon- 
nair, — 

“ Each land hath its customs, dear Sexwolf ; and if the 
Norman were king of England, he would take the laws 
as he finds them, and the ceorls would be as safe with 
William as Edward.” 

“The Norman, king of England !” cried the Saxon, 
reddening to the tips of his great ears, “What dost thou 
babble of, stranger? The Norman ! — How could that 
ever be ? ” 

“Nay, I did but suggest — but suppose such a case,” 
replied the knight, still smothering his wrath. “ And 
why thinkest thou the conceit so outrageous ? Thy king 
is childless ; William is his next of kin, and dear to him 
as a brother ; and if Edward did leave him the throne — ” 

“ The throne is for no man to leave,” almost roared 
the Saxon. “ Thinkest thou the people of England are 
like cattle and sheep, and chatties and theowes, tc be 
left by will, as man fancies ? The king’s wish has its 
weight, no doubt, J^ut the Witan hath its yea or its nay, 
and the Witan and Commons are seldom at issue thereon. 
Thy duke king of England! Marry! Ha! ha!” 

“ Brute I ” muttered the knight to himself ; then adding 


HAROLD. 


315 


aioud, with his old tone of irony (now much habitually 
subdued by years and discretion), “Why takest thou so 
the part of the ceorls ? thou a captain, and well-nigh a 
thcgn 1 ” 

“ I was born a ceorl, and my father before me,” re- 
turned Sexwolf, “and I feel with my class; though my 
grandson may rank with the thegns, and, for aught I 
know, with the earls.” 

The Sire de Graville involuntarily drew off from the 
Saxon’s side, as if made suddenly aware that he had 
grossly demeaned himself in such unwitting familiarity 
with a ceorl, and a ceorl’s son ; and he said, with a much 
more careless accent and lofty port than before, — 

“ Good man, thou wert a ceorl, and now thou leadest 
Earl Harold’s men to the war I How is this ? I do not 
quite comprehend it.” 

“ How shouldst thou, poor Norman,” replied the Saxon 
compassionately. “ The tale is soon told. Know that 
when Harold our earl was banished, and his lands taken, 
we his ceorls helped with his sixhaendman, Clapa, to 
purchase his land, nigh by London, and the house wherein 
thou didst find me, of a stranger, thy countryman, to 
whom they were lawlessly given. And we tilled the land, 
we tended the herds, and we kept the house till the earl 
came back.” 

“ Ye had moneys then, moneys of your own, ye ceorls !” 
said the Norman avariciously. 

“ How else could we buy our freedom ? Every ceorl 
hath some hours to himself to employ to his profit, and 


316 


HAROLD. 


ran lay by for his own ends. These savings we gave up 
for our earl, and when the earl came back, he gave the 
sixhaendman hydes of land enow to make him a thegn ; 
and he gave the ceorls who had holpen Clapa, their free- 
dom and broad shares of his boc-land, and most of them 
now hold their own ploughs and feed their own herds. 
But I loved the earl (having no wife) better than swine 
and glebe, and I prayed him to let me serve him in arms. 
And so I have risen, as with us ceorls can rise.” 

“ I am answered,” said Mallet de Graville thoughtfully 
and still somewhat perplexed. “ But these theowes (they 
are slaves) never rise. It cannot matter to them whether 
shaven Norman or bearded Saxon sit on the throne ?” 

“ Thou art right there,” answered the Saxon ; “ it mat- 
ters as little to them as it doth to thy thieves and felons, 
for many of them are felons and thieves, or the children 
of such ; and most of those who are not, it is said, are 
not Saxons, but the barbarous folks whom the Saxons 
subdued. No, wretched things, and scarce men, they 
care nought for the land. Howbeit, even they are not 
without hope, for the Church takes their part ; and that, 
at least, I for one, think Church-worthy,” added the 
Saxon with a softened eye. “And every abbot is bound 
to set free three theowes on his lands, and few who own 
theowes die without freeing some by their will ; so that 
the sons of theowes may be thegns, and thegns some of 
them are at this day.” 

“Marvels!” cried the Norman. “But surely they 


HAROLD. 317 

bear a stain and stigma, and their fellow-thegns flout 
them 

“Not a whit — why so? land is land, money money. 
Little, I trow, care we what a man’s father may have 
been, if the man himself hath his ten hydes or more of 
good boc-land.” 

“Ye value land and the moneys,” said the Norman, 
“so do we, but we value more name and birth.” 

“ Ye are still in your leading-strings, Norman,” replied 
the Saxon, waxing good-humored in his contempt. “ We 
have an old saying and a wise one, ‘All come from Adam 
except Tib the ploughman ; but when Tib grows rich, all 
call him ‘dear brother.’” 

“With such pestilent notions,” quoth the Sire de Gra- 
ville, no longer keeping temper, “I do not wonder that 
our fathers of Norway and Daneland beat ye so easily. 
The love for things ancient — creed, lineage, and name, is 
better steel against the stranger, than your smiths ever 
welded.” 

Therewith, and not waiting for Sexwolfs reply, he 
clapped spurs to his palfrey, and soon entered the court- 
yard of the convent. 

A monk of the order of St. Benedict, then most in 
favor, * ushered the noble visitor into the cell of the 
abbot ; who, after gazing at him a moment in wonder 
and delight, clasped him to his breast and kissed him 
heartily on brow and cheek. 

* Indeed, apparently the only monastic order in England. 

27 * 


318 


HAROLD. 


“Ah, Guillaume,” he exclaimed in the Norman tongue, 
“this is indeed a grace for which to sing Jubilate. Thou 
canst not guess how welcome is the face of a countryman 
in this horrible land of ill-cooking and exile.” 

“ Talking of grace, my dear father, and food,” said De 
Graville, loosening the cincture of the tight vest which 
gave him the shape of a wasp — for even at that early 
period, small waists were in vogue with the warlike fops 
of the French continent — “ talking of grace, the sooner 
thou say’st it over some friendly refection, the more will 
the Latin sound unctuous and musical. I have journeyed 
since daybreak, and am now hungered and faint.” 

“Alack, alack ! ” cried the abbot, plaintively, “ thou 
knowest little, my son, what hardships we endure in these 
parts, how larded our larders, and how nefarious our fare. 
The flesh of swine salted — ” 

“The flesh of Beelzebub,” cried Mallet de Graville 
aghast. “ But comfort thee, I have stores on my sump- 
ter- mules — poulardes and fishes, and other not despicable 
comestibles, and a few flasks of wine, not pressed, laud 
the saints ! from the vines of this country : wherefore, 
wilt thou see to it, and instruct thy cooks how to season 
the cheer ? ” 

“ No cooks have I to trust to,” replied the abbot ; “ of 
cooking know they here as much as of Latin ; natheless, 
I will go and do my best with the stew-pans. Mean- 
while, thou wilt at least have rest and the bath. For the 
Saxons, even in their convents, are a clean race, and 
learned the bath from the Dane.” 


HAROLD. 


319 


“ That I have noted,” said the knight, ‘‘for even a 
the smallest house at which I have lodged in my way 
from London, the host hath courteously offered me the 
bath, and the hostess linen curious and fragrant ; and to 
say truth, the poor people are hospitable and kind, de- 
spite their uncouth hate of the foreigner; nor is their 
meat to be despised, plentiful and succulent ; but pardex , 
as thou sayest, little helped by the art of dressing. 
Wherefore, my father, I will while the lime till the pou- 
lardes be roasted, and the fish broiled or stewed, by the 
ablutions thou profiferest me. I shall tarry with thee some 
hours, for I have much to learn.” 

The abbot then led the Sire de Graville by the hand to 
the cell of honor and guestship, and having seen that the 
bath prepared was of warmth sufficient, for both Norman 
and Saxon (hardy men as they seem to us from afar) so 
shuddered at the touch of cold water, that a bath of 
natural temperature (as well as a hard bed) was some- 
times imposed as a penance, — the good father went his 
way, to examine the sumpter-mules, and admonish the 
much-suffering and bewildered lay-brother who officiated 
as cook, — and who, speaking neither Norman nor Latin, 
scarce made out one word in ten of his superior’s elaborate 
exhortations. 

Mallet’s squire, with a change of raiment, and goodly 
coffers of soaps, unguents, and odors, took his way to the 
knight, for a Norman of birth was accustomed to much 
personal attendance, and had all respect for the body : 
and it was nearly an hour before, in a long gown of fur, 


320 


II A R 0 L B . 


reshaven, dainty, and decked, the Sire de Graville bowed, 
and sighed, and prayed before the refection set out in the 
abbot’s cell. 

The two Normans, despite the sharp appetite of the 
layman, ate with great gravity and decorum, drawing 
forth the morsels served to them on spits with silent 
examination ; seldom more than tasting, with looks of 
patient dissatisfaction, each of the comestibles ; sipping 
rather than drinking, nibbling rather than devouring, 
washing their fingers in rose-water with nice care at the 
close, and waving them afterwards gracefully in the air, 
to allow the moisture somewhat to exhale before they 
wiped off the lingering dews with their napkins. Then 
they exchanged looks and sighed in concert, as if recall- 
ing the polished manners of Normandy, still retained in 
that desolate exile. And their temperate meal thus con- 
cluded, dishes, wines, and attendants vanished, and their 
talk commenced. 

“How earnest thou in England?” asked the abbot 
abruptly. 

“ Sauf your reverence,” answered De Graville, “ not 
wholly for reasons different from those that bring thee 
hither. When, after the death of that truculent and 
orgulous Godwin, King Edward entreated Harold to let 
him have back some of his dear Norman favorites, thou, 
then little pleased with the plain fare and sharp discipline 
of the convent of Bee, didst pray Bishop William of 
London to accompany such train as Harold, moved by 
his poor king’s supplication, was pleased to permit. The 


HAROLD. 


321 


bishop consented, and thou wert enabled to change 
monk's cowl for abbot’s mitre. In a word, ambition 
brought thee to England, and ambition brings me hither.” 

“HenH and how? Mayst thou thrive better than I 
in this swine-sty ! ” 

“You remember,” renewed De Graville, “that Lan- 
frano, the Lombard, was pleased to take interest in my 
fortunes, then not the most flourishing, and after his re- 
turn from Rome, with the pope’s dispensation for Count 
William’s marriage with his cousin, he became William’s 
most trusted adviser. Both William and Lanfranc were 
desirous to set an example of learning to our Latinless 
nobles, and therefore my scholarship found grace in their 
eyes. In brief— since then I have prospered and thriven. 
I have fair lands by the Seine, free from clutch of mer- 
chant and Jew. I have founded a convent, and slain 
some hundreds of Breton marauders. Need I say that I 
am in high favor ? Now it so chanced that a cousin of 
mine, Hugo de Magnaville, a brave lance and franc-rider, 
chanced to murder his brother in a little domestic affray, 
and, being of conscience tender and nice, the deed preyed 
on him, and he gave his lands to Odo of Bayeux, and set 
off to Jerusalem. There, having prayed at the Tomb 
(the knight crossed himself), he felt at once miraculously 
cheered and relieved ; but, journeying back, mishaps 
befell him. He was made slave by some infidel, to one 
of whose wives he sought to be gallant, par amours , and 
only escaped at last by setting fire to pavnim and prison. 
Now, by the aid of the Virgin, he has got back to Rouen, 
27* v 


322 


HAROLD. 


and holds his own land again in fief from proud Odo, as 
a knight of the bishop’s. It so happened that, passing 
homeward through Lycia, before these misfortunes befell 
him, he made friends with a fellow-pilgrim who had just 
returned, like himself, from the Sepulchre, but not light- 
ened, like him, of the load of his crime. This poor palm- 
er lay broken-hearted and dying in the hut of an eremite, 
where my cousin took shelter; and, learning that Hugo 
was on his way to Normandy, he made himself known as 
Sweyn, the once fair and proud Earl of England, eldest 
son to old Godwin, and father to Haco, whom our count 
still holds as a hostage. He besought Hugo to intercede 
with the count for Haco’s speedy release and return, if 
King Edward assented thereto ; and charged my cousin, 
moreover, with a letter to Harold, his brother, which 
Hugo undertook to send over. By good luck, it so 
chanced that, through all his sore trials, cousin Hugo 
kept safe round his neck a leaden effigy of the Virgin. 
The infidels disdained to rob him of lead, little dreaming 
the worth which the sanctity gave to the metal. To the 
back of the image Hugo fastened the letter, and so, 
though somewhat tattered and damaged, he had it still 
with him on arriving in Rouen. 

“ Knowing then, my grace with the count, and not, 
despite absolution and pilgrimage, much wishing to trust 
himself in the presence of William, who thinks gravely 
of fratricide, he prayed me to deliver the message, and 
ask leave to send to England the letter.” 

“It is a long tale,” quoth the abbot. 


HAROLD. 


323 


“Patience, my father! I am nearly at the end. No- 
thing more iu season could chance for my fortunes. Know 
that WilliaiiL has been long moody and anxious as to 
matters in England. The secret accounts he receives 
from the Bishop of London make him see that Edward’s 
heart is much alienated from him, especially since the 
count has had daughters and sons ; for, as thou knowest, 
William and Edward both took vows of chastity iu 
youth,* and William got absolved from his, while Edward 
hath kept firm to the plight. Not long ere my cousin 
came back, William had heard that Edward had ac- 
knowledged his kinsman as natural heir to his throne. 
Grieved and troubled, at this, William had said in my 
hearing, ‘Would that amidst yon statues of steel, there 
were some cool head and wise tongue I could trust with 
my interests in England ! and would that I could devise 
fitting plea and excuse for an envoy to Harold the Earl P 
Much had I mused over these words, and a light-hearted 
man was Mallet de Graville when, with Sweyn’s letter in 
hand, he went to Lanfranc the Abbot and said, ‘ Patron 
and father ! thou knowest that I, almost alone of the Nor- 
man knights, have studied the Saxon language. And if 
the duke wants messenger and plea, here stands the mes- 
senger, and in this hand is the plea.’ Then I told my 
tale. Lanfranc went at once to Duke William. By this 
time, news of the Atheling’s death had arrived, and things 
looked more bright to my liege. Duke William was 
pleased to summon me straightway, and give me his in- 


* See Note to Robert of Gloucester, vol. ii. p. 372. 


324 


HAROLD. 


struetions. So over the sea I came alone, save a single 
squire, reached London, learned the king and his court 
were at Winchester (but with them I had little to do), 
and that Harold the Earl was at the head of his forces 
in Wales against Gryffyth the Lion King. The earl had 
sent in haste for a picked and chosen band of his own re- 
tainers, on his demesnes near the city. These I joined, 
and learning thy name at the monastery at Gloucester, I 
stopped here to tell thee my news and hear thine.” 

“ Dear brother,” said the abbot, looking enviously on 
the knight, “ would that, like thee, instead of entering 
the Church, I had taken up arms ! Alike once was our 
lot, well-born and penniless. Ah me ! — Thou art now as 
the swan on the river, and I as the shell on the rock.” 

“But,” quoth the knight, “though the canons, it is 
true, forbid monks to knock people on the head, except 
5n self-preservation, thou knowest well that, even in 
Normandy (which, I take it, is the sacred college of all 
priestly lore, on this side the Alps), those canons are 
deemed too rigorous for practice ; and, at all events, it is 
not forbidden thee to look on the pastime with sword or 
mace by thy side in case of need. Wherefore, remember- 
ing thee in times past, I little counted on finding thee — . 
like a slug in thy cell ! No ; but with mail on thy back, 
the canons clean forgotten, and helping stout Harold to 
shyer and brain these turbulent Welchmen.” 

“Ah me! ah me! No such good fortune!” sighed 
the tall abbot. “ Little, despite thy former sojourn in 
London, and thy lore of their tongue, knowest thou of 


HAROLD. 


325 


these unmannerly Saxons. Rarely indeed do abbot and 
prelate ride to the battle ; * and were it not for a huge 
Danish monk, who took refuge here to escape mutilation 
for robbery, and who mistakes the Virgin for a Valkyr, 
and St. Peter for Thor, — were it not, I say, that we now 
and then have a bout at sword-play together, my arm 
would be quite out of practice.” 

“ Cheer thee, old friend,” said the knight, pityingly ; 
“better times may come yet. Meanwhile, now to affairs 
For all I hear strengthens all William has heard, that 
Harold the Earl is the first man in England. Is it not 
so?” 

“Truly, and without dispute.” 

“ Is he married or celibate ? For that is a question 
which even his own men seem to answer equivocally.” 

“ Why, all the wandering minstrels have songs, I am 
told by those who comprehend this poor barbarous 
tongue, of the beauty of Editha pulchra, to whom it is 
said the earl is betrothed, or it may be worse. But he is 
certainly not married, for the dame is akin to him within 
the degrees of the Church.” 

“ Hem, not married ! that is well ; and this Algar, or 
Elgar, he is not now with the Welch, I hear ? ” 


* The Saxon priests were strictly forbidden to bear arms. — 
Spklm. Concil. p. 238. 

It is mentioned in the English Chronicles, as a very extraordi- 
nary circumstance, that a bishop of Hereford, who had been Ha- 
rold’s chaplain, did actually take sword and shield against the 
Welch. Unluckily, this valiant prelate was slain so soon, that it 
was no encouraging example. 

I.— 28 


326 


HAROLD. 


“ No ; sore ill at Chester with wounds and much 
chafing, for he hath sense to see that his cause is lost. 
The Norwegian fleet have been scattered over the seas 
by the earl’s ships, like birds in a storm. The rebel 
Saxons who joined Gryffyth under Algar have been so 
beaten, that those who survive have deserted their chief, 
and Gryffyth himself is penned up in his last defiles, and 
cannot much longer resist the stout foe, who, by valor- 
ous St. Michael, is truly a great captain. As soon as 
Gryffyth is subdued, Algar will be crushed in his retreat, 
like a bloated spider in his web ; and then England will 
have rest, unless our liege, as thou hintest, set her to 
work again.” 

The Norman knight mused a few moments, before he 
said, — 

“ I understand, then, that there is no man in the land 
who is peer to Harold : — not, I suppose, Tostig his 
brother ? ” 

“Not Tostig, .surely, whom nought but Harold’s re- 
pute keeps a day in his earldom. But of late — for he is 
brave and skilful in war — he hath done much to command 
the respect, though he cannot win back the love, of his 
fierce Northumbrians, for he hath holpen the earl gal- 
lantly in this invasion of Wales, both by sea and by land. 
But Tostig shines only from his brother’s light ; and if 
Gurth were more ambitious, Gurth alone could be Ha- 
rold’s rival.” 

The Norman, much satisfied with the information thus 
gleaned from the abbot, who, despite his ignorance of 


HAROLD. 


327 


the Saxon tongue, was, like all his countrymen, acute 
and curious, now rose to depart. The abbot, detaining 
him a few moments, and looking at him wistfully, said in 
a low voice, — 

“ What thinkest thou are Count William’s chances of 
England ? ” 

“ Good, if he have recourse to stratagem ; sure, if he 
can win Harold.” 

“ Yet, take my word, the English love not the Nor- 
mans, and will fight stiffly.” 

“ That I believe. But if fighting must be, I see that 
it will be the fight of a single battle, for there is neither 
fortress nor mountain to admit of long warfare. And 
look you, my friend, everything here is worn out! The 
royal line is extinct with Edward, save in a child, whom 
I hear no man name as a successor ; the old nobility are 
gone ; there is no reverence for old names ; the Church 
is as decrepit in the spirit as thy lath monastery is de- 
cayed in its timbers ; the martial spirit of the Saxon is 
half rotted away in the subjugation to a clergy, not 
brave and learned, but timid and ignorant ; the desire 
for money eats up all manhood ; the people have been 
accustomed to foreign monarchs under the Danes ; and 
William, once victor, would have but to promise to re- 
tain the old laws and liberties, to establish himself as 
firmly as Canute. The Anglo-Danes might trouble him 
somewhat, but rebellion would become a weapon in the 
hands of a schemer like William. He would bristle all 
the land with castles and forts, and hold it as a camp. 


328 


HAROLD. 


My poor friend, we shall live yet to exchange gratula 
tions, — thou prelate of some fair English see, and 1 baron 
of broad English lands. ” 

11 1 think thou art right,” said the tall abbot, cheerily, 
“and marry, when the day comes, I will at least fight 
for the duke. Yea — thou art right,” he continued, 
looking round the dilapidated walls of the cell ; “ all 
here is worn out, and nought can restore the realm, save 
the Norman William, or ” 

11 Or who ? ” 

“ Or the Saxon Harold. But thou goest to see him — 
judge for thyself.” 

“ I will do so, and heedfully,” said the Sire de Graville ; 
and embracing his friend, he renewed his journey. 


CHAPTER YII. 

Messire Mallet de Graville possessed in perfection 
that cunning astuteness which characterized the Nor- 
mans, as it did all the old pirate races of the Baltic ; 
and if, O reader, thou, peradventure, shouldst ever in 
this remote day have dealings with the tall men of Ebor 
or Yorkshire, there wilt thou yet find the old Dane- 
father’s wit — it may be to thy cost — more especially if 
treating for those animals which the ancestors ate, and 
which the sons, without eating, still manage to fatten on 


HAROLD. 


329 


But though the crafty knight did his best, during his 
progress from London into Wales, to extract from Sex- 
wolf all such particulars respecting Harold and his 
brethren as he had reasons for wishing to learn, he found 
the stubborn sagacity or caution of the Saxon more than 
a match for him. Sexwolf had a dog’s instinct in all 
that related to his master; and he felt, though he scarce 
knew why, that the Norman cloaked some design upon 
Harold in all the cross-questionings so carelessly ven- 
tured. And his stiff silence, or bluff replies, when Harold 
was mentioned, contrasted much the unreserve of his talk 
when it turned upon the general topics of the day, or the 
peculiarities of Saxon manners. 

By degrees, therefore, the knight, chafed and foiled, 
drew into himself ; and seeing no farther use could be 
made of the Saxon, suffered his own national scorn of 
villein companionship to replace his artificial urbanity. 
He therefore rode alone, and a little in advance of the 
rest, noticing with a soldier’s eye the characteristics of 
the country, and marvelling, while he rejoiced, at the 
insignificance of the defences which, even on the marches, 
guarded the English country from the Cymrian ravager. 
In musings of no very auspicious and friendly nature 
towards the land he thus visited, the Norman, on the 
second day from that in which he had conversed with the 
abbot, found himself amongst the savage defiles of North 
Wales. 

Pausing there in a narrow pass overhung with wild 
and desolate rocks, the knight deliberately summoned his 
28 * 


330 


HAROLD. 


squires, cTad himself in Iris ring-mail, and mounted his 
great destrier. 

“Thou dost wrong, Norman, ” said Sexwolf, “thou 
fatiguest thyself in vain — heavy arms here are needless. 

I have fought in this country before ; and as for thy 
steed, thou wilt soon have to forsake it, and march on 
foot.” 

“Know, friend,” retorted the knight, “that I come not 
here to learn the horn-book of war ; and, for the rest, 
know also, that a noble of Normandy parts with his life 
ere he forsakes his good steed.” 

“Ye outlanders and Frenchmen,” said Sexwolf, show- 
ing the whole of his teeth through his forest of beard, 
“love boast and big talk; and, on my troth, thou 
mayest have thy belly full of them yet ; for we are still 
in the track of Harold, and Harold never leaves behind 
him a foe. Thou art as safe here as if singing psalms in 
a convent.” 

“For thy jests, let them pass, courteous sir,” said the 
Norman ; “but I pray thee only not to call me French- 
man.* I impute it to thy ignorance in things comely 

* The Normans and French detested each other; and it was the 
Norman who taught to the Saxon his own animosities against the 
Frank. A very eminent antiquary, indeed, De la Rue, considered 
that the Bayeux tapestry could not be the work of Matilda, or her 
age, because in it the Normans are called French ; but that is a 
gross blunder on his part; for William, in his own charters, calls 
the Normans “ Fraud.” Wace, in his “ Roman de Rou,” often 
6tyles the Normans “French;” and William of Poitiers, a contem- 
porary of the Conqueror, gives them also in one passage the sam« 


HAROLD. 


331 


and martial, and not to thy,design to insult me. Though 
my own mother was French, learn that a Norman despises 
a Frank only less than he doth a Jew.” 

“Crave your grace,” said the Saxon, “but I thought 
all ye outlanders were the same, rib and rib, sibbe and 
sibbe.” 

“ Thou wilt know better one of these days. Man h 
on, Master Sexwolf.” 

The pass gradually opened on a wide patch of rugged 
and herbless waste ; and Sexwolf, riding up to the knight, 
directed his attention to a stone, on which was inscribed 
the words, “Hie victor fuit Haroldus .” — Here Harold 
conquered. 

“In sight of a stone like that, no Walloon dare come,” 
said the Saxon. 

“A simple and classical trophy,” remarked the Nor- 
man, complacently, “ and saith much. I am glad to see 
thy lord knows the Latin.” 

“I say not that he knows Latin,” replied the prudent 
Saxon ; fearing that that could be no wholesome infor- 
mation on his lord’s part, which was of a kind to give 
gladness to the Norman — “Ride on while the road lets 
ye — in God’s name.” 

On the confines of Caernarvonshire, the troop halted 
at a small village, round which had been newly dug a 
deep military trench, bristling with palisades, and within 

name. Still, it is true that the Normans were generally \ery 
tenacious of their distinction from their gallant but hostile neigh* 
bors. 


332 


HAROLD. 


its confines might be seen — some reclined on the grass, 
some at dice, some drinking — many men, whose garbs 
of tanned hide, as well as a pennon waving from a little 
mound in the midst, bearing the tiger-heads of Earl 
Harold’s insignia, showed them to be Saxons. 

“Here we shall learn,” said Sexwolf, “what the earl 
ifc about — and here, at present, ends my journey.” 

“Are these the earl’s head-quarters then ? — no castle, 
even of wood— no wall, nought but ditch and palisades ?” 
asked Mallet de Graville in a tone between surprise and 
contempt. 

“ Norman,” said Sexwolf, “ the castle is there, though 
you see it not, and so are the walls. The castle is Harold’s 
name, which no Walloon will dare to confront ; and the 
walls are the heaps of the slain which lie in every valley 
around.” So saying, he wound his horn, which was 
speedily answered, and led the way over a plank which 
admitted across the trench. 

“Not even a drawbridge!” groaned the knight. 

Sexwolf exchanged a few words with one who seemed 
the head of the small garrison, and then regaining the 
Norman, said, “the earl and his men have advanced into 
the mountainous regions of Snowdon ; and there, it is 
said, the blood-lusting Gryffyth is at length driven to bay. 
Harold hath left orders that, after as brief a refreshment 
as may be, I and my men, taking the guide he hath left 
for us, join him on foot. There may now be danger : for, 
though Gryffyth himself may be pinned to his heights, he 
may have yet some friends in these parts to start up from 


HAROLD 


33 ? 


crag and combe. The way on horse is impassable • 
wherefore, master Norman, as our quarrel is not thine nor 
thine our lord, I commend thee to halt here in peace and 
in safety, with the sick and the prisoners. ” 

“ It is a merry companionship, doubtless,” said the 
Norman ; “but one travels to learn, and I would fain see 
somewhat of thine uncivil skirmishings with these men 
of the mountains ; wherefore, as I fear my poor mules 
are light of the provender, give me to eat and to drink. 
And then shalt thou see, should we come in sight of the 
enemy, if a Norman’s big words are the sauce of small 
deeds.” 

“ Well spoken, and better than I reckoned on/’ said 
Sexwolf, heartily. 

While De Graville, alighting, sauntered about the 
village, the rest of the troop exchanged greetings with 
their countrymen. It was, even to the warrior’s eye, a 
mournful scene. Here and there, heaps of ashes and ruin 
— houses riddled and burned— the small, humble church, 
untouched indeed by war, but looking desolate and for- 
lorn — w ith sheep grazing on large recent mounds thrown 
over the brave dead, who slept in the ancestral spot they 
had defended. 

The air was fragrant with the spicy smells of the gale 
or bog-myrtle ; and the village lay sequestered in a scene 
wild indeed and savage, but prodigal of a stern beauty 
to which the Norman, poet by race, and scholar by cul- 
ture, was not insensible. Seating himself on a rude stone, 
apart from all the warlike and murmuring groups, he 


334 


HAROLD. 


looked forth on the dim and vast mountain-peaks, and 
the rivulet that rushed below, intersecting the village, and 
lost amidst copses of mountain-ash. From these more 
refined contemplations, he was roused by Sexwolf, who, 
with greater courtesy than was habitual to him, accom- 
panied the theowes who brought the knight a repast, con- 
sisting of cheese, and small pieces of seethed kid, with a 
large horn of very indifferent mead. 

“ The earl puts all his men on Welch diet,” said the 
captain apologetically ; “ for, indeed, in this lengthy war- 
fare, nought else is to be had ! ” 

The knight curiously inspected the cheese, and bent 
earnestly over the kid. 

“ It sufficeth, good Sexwolf,” said he, suppressing a 
natural sigh : “but instead of this honey-drink, which is 
more fit for bees than for men, get me a draught of fresh 
water: water is your only safe drink before fighting.” 

“ Thou hast never drunk ale, then ! ” said the Saxon ; 
“but thy foreign tastes shall be heeded, strange man.” 

A little after noon the horns were sounded, and the 
troop prepared to depart. But the Norman observed 
that they had left behind all their horses ; and his squire 
approaching, informed him that Sexwolf had positively 
forbidden the knight’s steed to be brought forth. 

“Was it ever heard before,” cried Sire Mallet de Gra- 
ville, “that a Norman knight was expected to walk and 
to walk against a foe too ! Call hither the villein, — that 
is, the captain.” 

But Sexwolf himself here appeared, and to him De 


HAROLD 


335 


Grarille addressed his indignant remonstrance. The 
Saxon stood firm, and to each argument replied simply, 

“ It is the earl’s orders ; ” and finally wound up with a 
bluff — “Go, or let alone ; stay here with thy horse, or 
march with us on thy feet.” 

“ My horse is a gentleman,” answered the knight, 
“ and, as such, would be ray more fitting companion ; but, 
as it is, I yield to compulsion — I bid thee solemnly ob- 
serve, by compulsion ; so that it may never be said of 
William Mallett de Graville, that he walked, bon gre, to 
battle.” With that, he loosened his sword in the sheath, 
and, still retaining his ring-mail, fitting close as a shirt, 
strode on with the rest. 

A Welch guide, subject to one of the under-kings (who 
was in allegiance to England, and animated, as many of 
those petty chiefs were, with a vindictive jealousy against 
the rival tribe of Gryffyth, far more intense than his dis- 
like of the Saxon), led the way. 

The road wound for some time along the course of the 
river Conway ; Penmaen-mawr loomed before them. 
Not a human being came in sight, not a goat was seen 
on the distant ridges, not a sheep on the pastures. The 
solitude in the glare of the broad August sun was op- 
pressive. Some houses they passed — if buildings of 
rough stones, containing but a single room, can be called 
h ouses — but they were deserted. Desolation preceded 
their way, for they were on the track of Harold the 
Victor. At length, they passed the old Conovium, now 
Caer-h§n, lying near the river. There were still (not as 


33ft 


HAROLD. 


we now scarcely discern them, after centuries of havoc; 
the mighty ruins of the Romans, — vast shattered walls, 
a tower half demolished, visible remnants of gigantic 
baths, and, proudly rising near the present ferry of Tal- 
y-Cafn, the fortress, almost unmutilated, of Castell-y- 
Bryn. On the castle waved the pennon of Harold. 
Many large flat-bottomed boats were moored to the 
river-side, and the whole place bristled with spears and 
javelins. 

Much comforted (for, — though he disdained to mur- 
mur, and rather than forego his mail, would have died 
therein a martyr, — Mallett de Graville was mightily 
wearied by the weight of his steel), and hoping now to 
see Harold himself, the knight sprang forward with a 
spasmodic effort at liveliness, and found himself in the 
midst of a group, among whom he recognized at a glance 
his old acquaintance, Godrith. Doffing his helm with its 
long nose-piece, he caught the thegn’s hand, and ex- 
claimed, — 

“Well met, ventre de Guillaume! well met, 0 Godree, 
the debonnair ! Thou rememberest Mallett de Graville, 
and in this unseemly guise, on foot, and with villeins, 
sweating under the eyes of plebeian Phoebus, thou be- 
koldest that much-suffering man!” 

“Welcome, indeed,” returned Godrith, with some em- 
barrassment; “but how earnest thou hither, and whom 
seekest thou ? ” 

“ Harold, thy count, man — and I trust he is here.” 

“Not so, but not far distant — at a place by the mouth 


HAROLD. 


337 


of the river called Caer Gyffin * Thou shalt take boat, 
and be there ere the sunset.” 

“Is a battle at hand? Yon churl disappointed and 
tricked me ; he promised me danger, and not a soul have 
we met.” 

“Harold’s besom sweeps clean,” answered Godrith, 
emiling ; “ but thou art like, perhaps, to be in at the 
death. We have driven this Welch lion to bay at last — 
he is ours, or grim Famine’s. Look yonder ; ” and God- 
rith pointed to the heights of Penmaen-mawr. “Even 
at this distance you may yet descry something grey and 
dim against the sky.” 

“Deemest thou my eye so ill practised in siege, as not 
to see towers ? Tall and massive they are, though they 
seem here as airy as masts, and as dwarfish as landmarks.” 

“ On that hill-top, and in those towers, is Gryffyth, the 
Welch king, with the last of his force. He cannot escape 
us ; our ships guard all the coasts of the shore ; our 
troops, as here, surround every pass. Spies, night and 
day, keep watch. The Welch moels (or beacon-rockh. 
are manned by our warders; and, were the Welch king 
to descend, signals would blaze from post to post, and 
gird him with fire and sword. From land to land, from 
hill to hill, from Hereford to Caerleon, from Caerleon to 
Milford, from Milford to Snowdon, through Snowdon to 
yonder fort, built, they say, by the fiends or the giants, 
— through defile and through forest, over rock, through 


* The present town an<l castle of Conw.iy. 

W 


1—29 


338 


HAROLD. 


morass, we have pressed on his heels. Battle and foray 
alike have drawn the blood from his heart; and thou 
wilt have seen the drops yet red on the way, where the 
3tone tells that Harold was victor. ” 

“ A brave man and true king, then, this Grylfyth,” said 
I he Norman, with some admiration ; “ but,” he added in 
a colder tone, “I confess, for my own part, that though 
[ pity the valiant man beaten, I honor the brave man 
who wins ; and though I have seen but little of this rough 
land as yet, I can well judge from what I have seen, that 
no captain, not of patience unwearied, and skill most con- 
summate, could conquer a bold enemy in a country where 
every rock is a fort.” 

“So I fear,” answered Godrith, “that my countryman 
Rolf found ; for the Welch beat him sadly, and the reason 
was plain. He insisted on using horses where no horses 
could climb, and attiring men in full armor to light 
against men light and nimble as swallows, that skim the 
earth, then are lost in the clouds. Harold, more wise, 
turned our Saxons into Welchmen, flying as they flew, 
climbing where they climbed ; it has been as a war of the 
birds. And now there rests but the eagle, in his last 
lonely eyrie.” 

‘Thy battles have improved thy eloquence much, 
Messire Godree,” said the Norman condescendingly. 
“Nevertheless, I cannot but think a few light horse ” 

“Could scale yon mountain brow?” said Godrith, 
laughing, and pointing to Penmaen-mawr. 

“ The Norman looked and was silent, though he thought 
to himself, “ That Sexwolf was no such dolt after all 1” 


BOOK SEVENTH. 


THE WELCH KING. 


CHAPTER I. 

The sun had just cast its last beams over the breadth 
of water into which Conway, or rather Cyn-wy, “the 
great river,” emerges its winding waves. Not at that 
time existed the matchless castle, which is now the mo- 
nument of Edward Plantagenet, and the boast of Wales. 
But besides all the beauty the spot took from nature, it 
had even some claim from ancient art. A rude fortress 
rose above the stream of Gyffin, out of the wrecks of 
some greater Roman hold,* and vast ruins of a former 
tcwn lay round it ; while opposite the fort, on the huge 
and ragged promoutory of Gogarth, might still be seen, 
forlorn and grey, the wrecks of the imperial city, de- 
stroyed ages before by lightning. 

All these remains of a power and a pomp that Rome 
in vain had bequeathed to the Briton, were full of pa- 


* See Camden’s Britannia , “ Caernarvonshire .” 


( 339 ) 


340 


HAROLD. 


thetic and solemn interest, when blent with the thought, 
that on yonder steep, the brave prince of a race of 
heroes, whose line transcended, by ages, all the other 
royalties of the North, awaited, amidst the ruins of man, 
and in the stronghold which nature yet gave, the hour 
of his doom. 

But these were not the sentiments of tne martial and 
observant Norman, with the fresh blood of a new race 
of conquerors. 

“In this land,” thought he, “far more even than in 
that of the Saxon, there are the ruins of old ; and when 
the present can neither maintain nor repair the past, its 
future is subjection or despair.” 

Agreeably to the peculiar usages of Saxon military 
skill, which seems to have placed all strength in dykes 
and ditches, as being perhaps the cheapest and readiest 
outworks, a new trench had been made round the fort, 
on two sides, connecting it on the third and fourth with 
the streams of Gyffin and the Conway. But the boat 
was rowed up to the very walls, and the Norman, spring- 
ing to land, was soon ushered into the presence of the 
earl. 

Harold was seated before a rude table, and bending 
over a rough map of the great mountain of Penmaen ; 
a lamp of iron stood beside the map, though the air was 
yet clear. 

The earl rose, as De Graville, entering with the proud 
but easy grace habitual to his countrymen, said, iu his 
best Saxon, — 


HAROLD. 


341 


"Hail to Earl Harold! William Mallet de Graville, 
the Norman, greets him, and brings him news from be- 
yond the seas.” 

There was only one seat in that bare room — the seat 
from which the earl had risen. He placed it with simple 
courtesy before his visitor, and, leaning himself against 
the table, said, in the Norman tongue, which he spoke 
fluently, — 

“ It is no slight thanks that I owe to the Sire de Gra- 
ville, that he hath undertaken voyage and journey on my 
behalf ; but before you impart your news, I pray you to 
take rest and food.” 

“ Rest will not be unwelcome ; and food, if unrestricted 
to goats’ cheese, and kid-flesh, — luxuries, new to my 
palate, — will not be untempting; but neither food nor 
rest can I take, noble Harold, before I excuse myself, as 
a foreigner, for thus somewhat infringing your laws by 
which we are banished, and acknowledging gratefully the 
courteous behavior I have met from thy countrymen not- 
withstanding.” 

“ Fair Sir,” answered Harold, “ pardon us if, jealous 
of our laws, we have seemed inhospitable to those who 
would meddle with them. But the Saxon is never more 
pleased than when the foreigner visits him only as the 
friend : to the many who settle amongst us for commerce 
— Fleming, Lombard, German, and Saracen — we proffer 
shelter and welcome ; to the few who, like thee, Sir Nor- 
man, venture over the seas but to serve us, we give frank 
cheer and free hand.” 

29 * 


/ 


342 


HAROLD. 


Agreeably surprised at this gracious reception from 
the son of Godwin, the Norman pressed the hand ex- 
tended to him, and then drew forth a small case, and 
related accurately, and with feeling, the meeting of his 
cousin with Sweyn, and Sweyn’s dying charge. 

The earl listened, with eyes bent on the ground, and 
face turned from the lamp ; and, when Mallet had con- 
cluded his recital, Harold said, with an emotion he strug- 
gled in vain to repress, — 

“ I thank you cordially, gentle Norman, for kindness 
kindly rendered ! I — I — ” The voice faltered. “ Sweyn 
was very dear to me in his sorrows ! We heard that he 
had died in Lycia, and grieved much and long. So, after 

he had thus spoken to your cousin, he — he Alas ! O 

Sweyn, my brother ! ” 

“ He died,” said the Norman, soothingly ; “ but shriven 
and absolved ; and my cousin says, calm and hopeful, as 
they die ever who have knelt at the Savior’s tomb 1 ” 

Harold bowed his head, and turned the case that held 
the letter again and again in his hand, but would not 
venture to open it. The knight himself, touched by a 
grief so simple and manly, rose with the delicate instinct 
that belongs to sympathy, and retired to the door, with- 
out which yet waited the officer who had conducted him. 

Harold did not attempt to detain him, but followed 
him across the threshold, and briefly commanding the 
officer to attend to his guest as to himself, said — “ With 
the morning, Sire de Graville, we shall meet again ; I see 


HAROLD. 


348 


that you are one to whom I need not excuse man’s na- 
tural emotions.” 

“A noble presence ! ” muttered the knight, as he de- 
scended the stairs ; “but he hath Norman, at least Norse 
blood in his veins on the distaff side — Fair Sir ! ” — (this 
aloud to the officer) — “ any meat save the kid-flesh, I 
pray thee ; and any drink save the mead ! ” 

“Fear not, guest,” said the officer; “for Tostig the 
earl hath two ships in yon bay, and hath sent us supplies 
that would please Bishop William of London ; for Tostig 
the Earl is a toothsome man.” 

“ Commend me, then, to Tostig the Earl,” said the 
knight; “he is an earl after my own heart.” 


CHAPTER II. 

On re-entering the room, Harold drew the large bolt 
across the door, opened the case, and took forth the de- 
tained and tattered scroll : — 

“ When this comes to thee, Harold, the brother of thy 
childish days will sleep in the flesh, and be lost to men’s 
judgment and earth’s woe in the spirit. I have knelt at 
the Tomb ; but no dove hath come forth from the cloid, 
— no stream of grace hath re-baptized the child of wrath 1 
They tell me, now — monk and priest tell me — that I 
have atoned all my sins ; that the dread weregeld is 
paid ; that I may enter the world of men with a spirit 


844 


HAROLD. 


free from tbe load, and a name redeemed from the stain. 
Think so, 0 brother! — Bid ray father (if he still lives, 
the dear old man !) thpik so; — tell Githa to think it; 
and oh, teach Haco, my son, to hold the belief as a truth ! 
Harold, again I commend to thee my son ; be to him as 
a father ! My death surely releases him as a hostage. 
Let him not grow up in the court of the stranger, in the 
land of our foes. Let his feet, in his youth, climb the 
green holts of England ; — let his eyes, ere sin dims them, 
drink the blue of her skies ! When this shall reach thee, 
thou, in thy calm, effortless strength, will be more great 
than Godwin our father. Power came to him with 
travail and through toil, the geld of craft and of force. 
Power is born to'thee as strength to the strong man ; it 
gathers around thee as thou movest ; it is not thine aim, 
it is thy nature to be great. Shield my child with thy 
might ; lead him forth from the prison-house by thy 
serene right hand ! I ask not for lordships and earl- 
doms, as the appanage of his father ; train him not to be 
rival to thee : — I ask but for freedom, and English air ! 
So counting on thee, 0 Harold, I turn my face to the 
wall, and hush my wild heart to peace ! ” 

The scroll dropped noiseless from Harold’s hand. 

“Thus,” said he, mournfully, “hath passed away less 
a life than a dream ! Yet of Sweyn, in our childhood, 
was Godwin most proud ; who so lovely in peace, and so 
terrible in wrath ? My mother taught him the songs of 
the Baltic, and Hilda led his steps through the woodland 
with tales of hero and scald. Alone of our House, he 


HAROLD. 


345 


had the gift of the Dane in the flow of fierce song, and 
for him things lifeless had being. Stately tree, from 
which all the birds of heaven sent their carol ; w'here the 
falcon took roost, whence the mavis flew forth in its glee, 
— how art thou blasted and seared, bough and core ! — 
srnit by the lightning and consumed by the worm ! ” 

He paused, and, though none were by, he long shaded 
his brow with his hand. 

“Now,” thought he, as he rose and slowly paced the 
chamber, “now to what lives yet on earth — his son! 
Often hath my mother urged me in behalf of these hos- 
tages ; and often have I sent to reclaim them. Smooth 
and false pretexts have met my own demand, and even 
the remonstrance of Edward himself. But surely, now 
that William hath permitted this Norman to bring over 
the letter, he will assent to what it hath become a wrong 
and an insult to refuse ; and Haco will return to his 
father’s land, and Wolnoth to his mother’s arms.” 


CHAPTER III. 

Messire Mallet de Graville (as becomes a man 
bred up to arms, and snatching sleep with quick grasp 
whenever that blessing be his to command) no sooner 
laid his head on the pallet to which he had been con- 
signed, than his eyes closed, and his senses were deaf 
to dreams. But at the dead of the midnight he was 
29 * 


346 


HAROLD. 


wakened by sounds that might have roused the Seveu 
Sleepers — shouts, cries, and yells, the blast of horns, the 
tramp of feet, and the more distant roar of hurrying 
multitudes. He leaped from his bed, and the whole 
chamber was filled with a lurid blood-red air. His first 
thought was that the fort was on fire. But springing 
upon the settle along the wall, and looking through the 
loophole of the tower, it seemed as if not the fort but the 
whole land was one flame, and through the glowing 
atmosphere he beheld all the ground, near and far, 
swarming with men. Hundreds were swimming the 
rivulet, clambering up dyke mounds, rushing on the 
levelled spears of the defenders, breaking through line 
and palisade, pouring into the enclosures ; some in half- 
armor of helm and corslet — others in linen tunics — many 
almost naked. Loud sharp shrieks of “Alleluia!”* 
blended with those of “ Out ! out ! Holy crosse ! ” f He 
divined at once that the Welch were storming the Saxon 
hold. Short time indeed sufficed for that active knight 

* When (a. d. 220) the bishops, Germauicus and Lupus, headed 
the Britons against the Piets and Saxons, in Easter week, fresh 
from their baptism in the Alyn, Germanicus ordered them to 
attend to his war-cry, and repeat it, he gave “ Alleluia.” The 
hills so loudly re-echoed the cry, that the enemy caught panic, and 
fled with great slaughter. Maes Garmon, in Flintshire, was the 
scene of the victory. 

•j- The cry of the English at the onset of battle was “ Holy Crosse, 
God Almighty afterwards in fight, “ Ouct, ouct,” out, out, — 
Hkarnk’s Disc. Antiquity of Motts. 

The latter cry probably, originated in the habit of defending 
their standard and central posts with barricades and closed shields,* 
and thus, idiomatically and vulgarly, signified ; ‘get out.” 


HAROLD. 


347 


to case himself in his mail ; and, sword in hand, he burst 
through the door, cleared the stairs, and gained the hall 
below, which was filled with men armiug in haste. 

“ Where is Harold ? ” he exclaimed. 

“ On the trenches already,” answered Sexwolf, buck- 
ling his corslet of hide. “This Welch hell hath broke 
loose.” 

“And yon are their beacon-fires ? Then the whole 
land is upon us ! ” 

“ Prate less,” quoth Sexwolf ; “ those are the hills now 
held by the warders of Harold : our spies gave them 
notice, and the watchfires prepared us ere the fiends came 
in sight, otherwise we had been lying here limbless or 
aeadless. How, men, draw up, and march forth.” 

“ Hold 1 hold ! ” cried the pious knight, crossing him- 
self, “is there no priest here to bless us ? first a prayer 
and a psalm ! ” 

“ Prayer and psalm ! ” cried Sexwolf, astonished, “ an’ 
thou hadst said ale and mead, I could have understood 
thee. — Out! Out! — Holyrood, Holyrood ! ” 

“ The godless paynims ! ” muttered the Norman, borne 
away with the crowd. 

Once in the open space, the scene was terrific. Brief 
as had been the onslaught, the carnage was already an- 
speakable. By dint of sheer physical numbers, animated 
bv a valor that seemed as the frenzy of madmen or the 
hunger of wolves, hosts of the Britons had crossed trench 
and stream, seizing with their hands the points of the 
spears opposed to them, bounding over the corpses of 


348 


HAROLD. 


their countrymen, and with yells of wild joy rushing upon 
the close serried lines drawn up before the fort. The 
stream seemed literally to run gore; pierced by javelins 
and arrows, corpses floated and vanished, while numbers 
undeterred by the havoc, leaped into the waves from the 
opposite banks. Like bears that surround the ship of a 
sea-king beneath the polar meteors, or the midnight sun 
of the north, came the savage warriors through that 
glaring atmosphere. 

Amidst all, two forms were pre-eminent : the one, tall 
and towering, stood by the trench, and behind a banner, 
that now drooped round the stave, now streamed wide 
and broad, stirred by the rush of men — for the night in 
itself was breezeless. With a vast Danish axe wielded 
by both hands, stood this man, confronting hundreds, and 
at each stroke rapid as the levin, fell a foe. All round 
him was a wall of his own — the dead. But in the centre 
of the space, leading on a fresh troop of shouting 
Welchmen who had forced their way from another part, 
was a form which seemed charmed against arrow and 
spear. For the defensive arms of this chief were as 
slight as if worn but for ornament; a small corslet of 
gold covered only the centre of his breast, a gold collar 
of twisted wires circled his throat, and a gold bracelet 
adorned his bare arm, dropping gore, not his own, from 
the wrist to the elbow. He was small and slight shaped 
— below the common standard of men — but he seemed 
as one made a giant by the sublime inspiration of war. 
He wore no helmet, merely a golden circlet ; and his 


HAROLD. 


349 


hair, of deep red (longer than was usual with the Welch), 
hung like the mane of a lion over his shoulders, tossing 
loose with each stride. His eyes glared like the tiger’s 
at night, and he leaped on the spears with a bound. 
Lost a moment amidst hostile ranks, save by the swift 
glitter of his short sword, he made, amidst all, a path for 
himself and his followers, and emerged from the heart 
of the steel unscathed and loud breathing ; while, round 
the line he had broken, wheeled and closed his wild men, 
striking, rushing, slaying, slain. 

“ Pardex , this is war worth the sharing,” said the 
knight. “And now, worthy Sexwolf, thou shalt see if 
the Norman is the vaunter thou deemest him. Dieu 
nous aide! Notre Dame! — Take the foe in the rear.” 
But turning round, he perceived that Sexwolf had already 
led his men towards the standard, which showed them 
where stood the earl, almost alone in his peril. The 
knight, thus left to himself, did not hesitate : — a minute 
more and he was in the midst of the Welch force, headed 
by the chief with the golden panoply. Secure in his 
ring-mail against the light weapons of the Welch, the 
sweep of the Norman sword was as the scythe of Dei th. 
Right and left he smote through the throng which he 
took in the flank, and had almost gained the small 
phalanx of Saxons, that lay firm in the midst, when the 
Cymrian chief’s flashing eye was drawn to this new and 
strange foe, by the roar and the groan round the Nor- 
man’s way ; and with the half-naked breast against the 
shirt of mail, and the short Roman sword against the 
L — 30 


350 


HAROLD. 


long Norman falchion, the Lion King of Wales fronted 
the knight. 

Unequal as seems the encounter, so quick was the 
spring of the Briton, so pliant his arm, and so rapid his 
weapon, that that good knight (who rather from skill 
and valor than brute physical strength, ranked amongst 
the prowest of William’s band of martial brothers) would 
willingly have preferred to see before him Fitzosborne or 
Montgommeri, all clad in steel and armed with mace and 
lance, than parried those dazzling strokes, and fronted 
the angry majesty of that helmless brow. Already the 
strong rings of his mail had been twice pierced, and his 
blood trickled fast, while his great sword had but smitten 
the air in its sweeps at the foe ; when the Saxon pha- 
lanx, taking advantage of the breach in the ring that 
girt them, caused by this diversion, and recognizing with 
fierce ire the gold torque and breast- plate of the Welch 
king, made their desperate charge. Then for some 
minutes the pele mele was confused and indistinct — blows 
blind and at random — death coming no man knew whence 
or how ; till discipline and steadfast order, (which the 
Saxons kept, as by mechanism, through the discord) 
obstinately prevailed. The wedge forced its way ; and, 
though reduced in numbers and sore wounded, the Saxon 
troop cleared the ring, and joined the main force drawn 
up by the fort, and guarded in the rear by its wall. 

Meanwhile Harold, supported by the band under Sex- 
wolf, had succeeded at length in repelling farther rein- 
forcements of the Welch at the more Accessible part of 


HAROLD. 


351 


the trenches ; and casting now his practised eye over the 
field, he issued orders for some of the men to regain the 
fort, and open from the battlements, and from every loop- 
hole, tne batteries of stone and javelin, which then (with 
the Saxons, unskilled in sieges) formed the main artille.’y 
of forts. These orders given, he planted Sexwolf and 
most of his band to keep watch round the trenches ; and 
shading his eye with his hand, and looking towards the 
moon, all waning and dimmed in the watch-fires, he said 
calmly, “ Now patience fights for us. Ere the moor, 
reaches yon hill-top, the troops at Aber and Caer-hen 
will be on the slopes of Penmaen, and cut off the retreat 
of the Walloons. Advance my flag to the thick of yon 
strife. ” 

But as the earl, with his axe swung over his shouldeT, 
and followed but by some half-score or more with hi? 
banner, strode on where the wild war was now mainly 
concentered, just midway between trench and fort, Gryf- 
fyth caught sight both of the banner and the earl, and 
left the press at the very moment when he had gained 
the greatest advantage ; and when indeed, but for the 
Norman, who, wounded as he was, and unused to fight 
on foot, stood resolute in the van, the Saxons,- wearied 
out by numbers, and falling fast beneath the javelins, 
would have fled into their walls, and so sealed their fate, 
— for the Welch would have entered at their heels. 

But it was the misfortune of the Welch heroes never 
to learn that war is a science ; and instead of now cen- 
tering all force on the point most weakened, the whole 


352 


HAROLD. 


field vanished from the fierce eye of the Welch king, when 
he saw the banner and form of Harold. 

The earl beheld the coming foe, wheeling round, as the 
hawk on the heron ; halted, drew up his few men in a 
semi-circle, with their large shields as a rampart, and 
their levelled spears as a palisade ; and before them all, 
as a tower, stood Harold with his axe. In a minute 
more he was surrounded ; and through the rain of javelins 
that poured upon him, hissed and glittered the sword of 
Gryffyth. But Harold, more practised than the Sire de 
Graville in the sword-play of the Welch, and unencum- 
bered by other defensive armor (save only the helm, which 
was shaped like the Norman’s), than his light coat of 
hide, opposed quickness to quickness, and suddenly drop- 
ping his axe, sprang upon his foe, and clasping him round 
with the left arm, with the right hand griped at his 
throat, — 

“ Yield, and quarter ! — yield, for thy life, son of Llew- 
ellyn ! ” 

Strong was that embrace, and death-like that gripe ; 
yet, as the snake from the hand of the dervise — as a ghost 
from the grasp of the dreamer, the lithe Cymrian glided 
away, and the broken torque was all that remained in the 
clutch of Harold. 

At this moment a mighty yell of despair broke from 
the Welch near the fort: stones and javelins rained upon 
them from the walls, and the fierce Norman was in the 
midst, with his sword drinking blood ; but not for javelin, 
stone, and sword, shrank and shouted the Welchmen. On 


HAROLD. 


353 


the other side of the trenches were marching against tnem 
their own countrymen, the rival tribes that helped the 
stranger to rend the land ; and far to the right were seen 
the spears of the Saxon from Aber, and to the left was 
heard the shout of the forces under Godrith from Caer- 
hen ; and they who had sought the leopard in his lair 
were now themselves the prey caught in the toils. With 
new heart, as they beheld these reinforcements, the Saxons 
pressed on ; tumult, and flight, and indiscriminate slaugh- 
ter, wrapped the field. The Welch rushed to the stream 
and the trenches ; and in the bustle and hurlabaloo, Gryf- 
fyth was swept along, as a bull by a torrent ; still facing 
the foe, now chiding, now smiting his own men, now rush- 
ing alone on the pursuers, and halting their onslaught, 
he gained, still unwounded, the stream, paused a moment, 
laughed loud, and sprang into the wave. A hundred 
javelins hissed into the sullen and bloody waters. 
“ Hold ! ” cried Harold the earl, lifting his hand on high, 
“No dastard dart at the brave!” 


CHAPTER IV. 

The fugitive Britons, scarce one-tenth of the number 
that had first rushed to the attack, — performed their flight 
with the same Parthian rapidity that characterized the 
assault ; and escaping both Welch foe and Saxon, though 
30 * 


x 


m 


HAROLD. 


the former broke ground to pursue them, they regained 
the steeps of Penmaen. 

There was no further thought of slumber that night 
within the walls. While the wounded were tended, and 
the dead were cleared from the soil, Harold, with three 
of his chiefs, and Mallet de Graville, whose feats rendered 
it more than ungracious to refuse his request that he 
might assist in the council, conferred upon the means of 
terminating the war with the next day. Two of the 
thegns, their blood hot with strife and revenge, proposed 
to scale the mountain with the whole force the reinforce- 
ments had brought them, and put all they found to the 
sword. 

The third, old and prudent, and inured to Welch war- 
fare, thought otherwise. 

“ None of us,” said he, “ know what is the true strength 
of the place which ye propose to storm. Not even one 
Welchman have we found who hath ever himself gained 
the summit, or examined the castle which is said to exist 
there.”* 

“Said 1 ” echoed de Graville, who, relieved of his mail, 
and with his wounds bandaged, reclined on his furs on 
the floor “ Said, noble sir 1 Cannot our eyes perceive 
the towers 1 ” 

The old thegn shook his head. “At a distance, and 
through mists, stones loom large, and crags themselves 

* Certain high places in Wales, of which this might well be one, 
were held so sacred, that even the dwellers in the immediate neigh- 
borhood never presumed to approach them. 


HAROLD. 


355 


take strange shapes. It may be castle, may be rock, may 
be old roofless temples of heathenesse that we see. But 
to repeat (and, as I am slow, I pray not again to be put 
out in my speech) — none of us know what, there, exists 
of defence, man-made or Nature-built. Not even thy 
Welch spies, son of Godwin, have gained to the heights. 
In the midst lie the scouts of the Welch king, and those 
on the top can see the bird fly, the goat climb. Few of 
thy spies, indeed, have ever returned with life ; their 
heads have been left at the foot of the hill, with the scroll 
in their lips, — * Die ad inferos — quid in superis novisti . 1 
Tell to the shades below what thou hast seen in the 
heights above.” 

“And the Walloons know Latin ! ” muttered the knight ; 
“ I respect them ! ” 

The slow thegn frowned, stammered, and renewed — 

“ One thing at least is clear ; that the rock is well-nigh 
insurmountable to those who know not the passes ; that 
strict watch, baffling even Welch spies, is kept night and 
day ; that the men on the summit are desperate and 
fierce ; that our own troops are awed and terrified by 
the belief of the Welch, that the spot is haunted and 
the towers fiend-founded. One single defeat may lose us 
two years of victory. Gryffyth may break from the eyrie, 
regain what he hath lost, win back our Welch allies, ever 
faithless and hollow. Wherefore, I say, go on as we have 
begun. Beset all the country round ; cut off all supplies, 
and let the foe rot by famine — or waste, as he hath dono 
this night, his strength by vain onslaught and sally.” 


356 


HAROLD. 


“ Thy counsel is good,” said Harold, “ but there is yet 
something to add to it, which may shorten the strife, and 
gain the end with less sacrifice of life. The defeat of 
to-night will have humbled the spirits of the Welch ; take 
them yet in the hour of despair and disaster. I wish, 
therefore, to send to their outposts a nuncius, with these 
terms — ‘Life and pardon to all who lay down arms and 
surrender.’ ” 

“What, after such havoc and gore ?’ f cried one of the 
thegns. 

“ They defend their own soil,” replied the earl simply : 
“had not we done the same?” 

“But the rebel Gryffyth ? ” asked the old thegn, “ thou 
canst not accept him again as crowned sub-king of Ed- 
ward ? ” 

“No,” said the earl, “I propose to exempt Gryffyth 
alone from the pardon, with promise, natheless, of life, 
if he give himself up as prisoner, and count, without 
further condition, on the king’s mercy.” There was a 
prolonged silence. None spoke against the earl’s pro- 
posal, though the two younger thegns misliked it much. 

At last said the elder, “ But hast thou thought who 
will carry this message ? Fierce and wild are yon blood* 
dogs ; and man must needs shrive soul and make will, if 
he go to their kennel.” 

“ I feel sure that my bode will be safe,” answered 
Harold ; “ for Gryffyth has all the pride of a king, and, 
spanng neither man nor child in the onslaught, will re- 


» 


HAROLD. 


S51 


spect what the Roman taught his sires to respect — envoy 
from chief to chief — as a head scatheless and sacred.” 

“ Choose whom thou wilt, Harold,” said one of the 
young thegns, laughing, “but spare thy friends; and 
whomsoever thou choosest, pay his widow the weregeld.” 

“Fair sirs,” then said De Graville, “if ye think that 
I, though a stranger, could serve you as nuncius, it would 
be a pleasure to me to undertake this mission. First, 
because, being curious as concerns forts and castles, I 
would fain see if mine eyes have deceived me in taking 
yon towers for a hold of great might. Secondly, because 
that same wild-cat of a king must have a court rare to 
visit. And the only reflection that withholds my pressing 
the offer as a personal suit is, that though I have some 
w'ords of the Breton jargon at my tongue’s need, I can- 
not pretend to be a Tully in Welch ; howbeit, since it 
seems that one, at least, among them knows something 
of Latin, I doubt not but what I shall get out my mean- 
ing ! ” 

“Nay, as to that, Sire de Graville,” said Harold, who 
seemed well pleased with the knight’s offer, “ there shall 
be no hindrance or let, as I will make clear to you; and 
in spite of what you have just heard, Gryflfyth shall harm 
you not in limb or in life. But, kindly and courteous si:, 
will your wounds permit the journey, not long, but steep 
and laborious, and only to be made on foot ? ” 

“ On foot ! ” said the knight, a little staggered, “ Par • 
dex! well and truly, I did not count upon that!” 


358 


HAROLD. 


“Enough,” said Harold, turning away in evident dis- 
appointment, “think of it no more.” 

“Hay, by your leave, what I have once said I stand 
to,” returned the knight ; “ albeit, you may as well cleave 
in two one of those respectable centaurs of which we 
have read in our youth, as part Norman and horse. I 
will forthwith go to my chamber, and apparel myself be- 
comingly — not forgetting, in case of the worst, to wear 
ray mail under my robe. Vouchsafe me but an armorer, 
just to rivet up the rings through which scratched so 
felinely the paw of that well-appelled Griffin .” 

“I accept your offer frankly,” said Harold, “and all 
shall be prepared for you, as soon as you yourself will 
re-seek me here.” 

The knight rose, and though somewhat stiff and smart- 
ing with his wounds, left the room lightly, summoned his 
armorer and squire, and having dressed with all the care 
and pomp habitual to a Norman, his gold chain round 
his neck, and his vest stiff with broidery, he re-entered 
the apartment of Harold. The earl received him alone, 
and came up to him with a cordial face. “ I thank thee 
more, brave Norman, than I ventured to say before my 
thegns, for I tell thee frankly, that my intent and aim are 
to save the life of this brave king; and thou canst veil 
understand that every Saxon amongst us must have his 
blood warmed by contest, and his eyes blind with national 
hate. You alone, as a stranger, see the valiant warrior 
and hunted prince, and as such you can feel for him the 
noble pity of manly foes.” 


HAROLD. 


359 


“That is true,” said De Graville, a little surprised, 
“though we Normans are at least as herce as you Saxons, 
when we have once tasted blood ; and I own nothing 
would please me better than to dress that catamaran in 
mail, put a spear in its claws, and a horse under its legs, 
and thus fight out my disgrace at being so clawed and 
mauled by its griffes. And though I respect a brave 
knight in distress, I can scarce extend my compassion to 
a thing that fights against all rule, martial and kingly.” 

The earl smiled gravely. “It is the mode in which 
his ancestors rushed on the spears of Caesar. Pardon 
him.” 

“I pardon him, at your gracious request,” quoth the 
knight, with a grand air, and waving his hands; “say 
on.” 

“ You will proceed with a Welch monk — whom, though 
not of the faction of Gryffyth, all Welchmen respect — to 
the mouth of a frightful pass, skirting the river ; the 
monk will bear aloft the holy rood in signal of peace 
Arrived at that pass, you will doubtless be stopped. The 
monk here will be spokesman ; and ask safe-conduct to 
Gryffyth to deliver my message; he will also bear cer- 
tain tokens, which will no doubt win the way for you. 

“Arrived before Gryffyth, the monk will accost him ; 
mark and heed well his gestures, since thou wilt know 
not the Weclh tongue he employs. And when he raises 
the rood, thou, — in the meanwhile, having artfully ap- 
proached close to Gryffyth, — wilt whisper in Saxon, which 
he well understands, and pressing the ring I now give 


360 


HAROLD. 


thee into his hand, ‘ Obey by this pledge ; thou knowest 
Harold is true, and thy head is sold by thine own people.’ 
If he asks more, thou knowest nought.” 

“So far, this is as should be from chief to chief,” said 
the Norman, touched, “and thus had Fitzosborne done 
t,o his foe. I thank thee for this mission, and, the more 
that thou hast not asked me to note the strength of the 
bulwark, and number the men that may keep it.” 

Again Harold smiled. “Praise me not for this, noble 
Norman — we plain Saxons have not your refinements. 
If ye are led to the summit, which I think ye will not be, 
the monk at least will have eyes to see, and tongue to 
relate. But to thee I confide this much ; — I know, 
already, that G-ry fifth’s strong-holds are not his walls and 
his towers, but the superstition of our men, and the 
despair of his own. I could win those heights, as I have 
won heights as cloud-capt, but with fearful loss of my 
own troops, and the massacre of every foe. Both I would 
spare, if I may.” 

“Yet thou hast not shown such value for life, in the 
solitudes I passed,” said the knight, bluntly. 

Harold turned pale, but said firmly, “ Sire de Graville, 
a stern thing is duty, and resistless is its voice. These 
Welchmen, unless curbed to their mountains, eat into 
the strength of England, as the tide gnaws into a shore. 
Merciless were they in their ravages on our borders, and 
ghastly and torturing their fell revenge. But it is one 
thing to grapple with a foe fierce and strong, and another 
to smite when his power is gone, fang and talon. And 
when I see before me the fated king of a great race, and 


HAROLD. 


36l 


the last band of doomed heroes, too few and too feeble 
to make head ageinst my arms — when the land is already 
my own, and the sword is that of the deathsman, not of 
the warrior — verily, Sir Norman, duty releases its iron 
tool, and man becomes man again.” 

“ I go,” said the Norman, inclining his head low as to 
his own great duke, and turning to the door ; yet there 
he paused, and looking at the ring which he had placed 
ou his finger, he said, “ But one word more, if not indis- 
creet — your answer may help argument, if argument be 
needed. What tale lies hid in this token?” 

Harold colored and paused a moment, then answered : 

“ Simply this. Gryflfyth’s v/ife, the lady Aldyth, a 
Saxon by birth, fell into my hands. We were storming 
Rhadlan, at the farther end of the isle ; she was there. 
We war not against women ; I feared the license of my 
own soldiers, and I sent the lady to Gryffyth. Aldyth 
gave me this ring on parting ; and I bade her tell Gryffyth 
that whenever, at the hour of his last peril and sorest 
need, I sent that ring back to him, he might hold it the 
pledge of his life.” 

“Is this lady, think you, in the strong-hold with her 
lord?” 

“ I am not sure, but I fear yes,” answered Harold. 

“Yet one word. And if Gryffyth refuse, despite all 
warning ? ” 

Harold’s eyes drooped. 

“If so, he dies; but not by the Saxon sword. God 
and our Lady speed you ! ” 

I— 31 


362 


HAROLD. 


CHAPTER V. 

On the height called Pen-y-Dinas (or “ Head of the 
City”\ forming one of the summits of Penmaen-mawr, 
and in the heart of that supposed fortress which no eye 
in the Saxon camp had surveyed, reclined Gryffyth, the 
hunted king. Nor is it marvellous that at that day there 
should be disputes as to the nature and strength of the 
supposed bulwark, since, in times the most recent, and 
among antiquaries the most learned, the greatest dis- 
crepancies exist, not only as to theoretical opinion, but 
plain matter of observation, and simple measurement. 
The place, however, I need scarcely say, was not as we 
see it now, with its foundations of gigantic ruin, afford- 
ing ample space for conjecture ; yet, even then a wreck 
as of Titans, its date and purpose were lost in remote 
antiquity. 

The central area (in which the Welch king now re- 
clined) formed an oval barrow of loose stones : whether 
so left from the origin, or the relics of some vanished 
building, was unknown even to bard or diviner. Round 
this space were four strong circumvallations of loose 
stones, with a space about eighty yards between each; 
the walls themselves generally about eight feet wide, but 
of various height, as the stones had fallen by time and 


HAROLD. 363 

Mast. Along these walls rose numerous and almost 
\ountless circular buildings, which might pass for towers, 
hough only a few had been recently and rudely roofed 
n. To the whole of this quadruple enclosure there was 
out one narrow entrance, now left open as if in scorn of 
issault; and a winding narrow pass down the mountain, 
tfith innumerable curves, alone led to the single threshold. 
Far down the hill, walls again were visible ; and the 
whole surface of the steep soil, more than half-way in 
the descent, was heaped with vast loose stones, as if the 
bones of a dead city. But beyond the innermost en- 
closure of the fort (if fort, or sacred enclosure, be the 
correcter name), rose thick and frequent, other mementos 
of the Briton ; many cromlechs, already shattered and 
shapeless ; the ruins of stone houses ; and high over all, 
those upraised, mighty amber piles, as at Stonehenge, 
once reared, if our dim learning be true, in honor to 
Bel, or Bal-Huan, the idol of the sun. All, in short, 
showed that the name of the place, “the Head of the 
City,” told its tale ; all announced that, there, once the 
Celt had his home, and the gods of the Druid their wor- 
ship. And musing amidst these skeletons of the past, 
lay the doomed son of Pen Dragon. 

Beside him a kind of throne had been raised with 
Btones, and over it was spread a tattered and faded velvet 
pall. On this throne sat Aldyth the queen ; and about 
the royal pair was still that mockery of a court which 
the jealous pride of the Celt king retained amidst all tho 
horrors of carnage and famine. Most of the officers, 


364 


HAROLD. 


indeed (originally in number twenty-four), whose duties 
attached them to the king and queen of the Cymry, were 
already feeding the crow or the worm. But still, with 
gaunt hawk on his wrist, the penhebogydd (grand fal- 
coner) stood at a distance; still, with beard sweeping 
his breast, and rod in hand, leaned against a projecting 
shatt of the wall, the noiseless gosdegwr, whose duty it 
was to command silence in the king’s hall ; and still the 
penbard bent over his bruised harp, which once had 
thrilled, through the fair vaults of Caerleon and Rhadlan, 
in high praise of God, and the king, and the Hero Dead. 
In the pomp of gold dish and vessel * the board was 
spread on the stones for the king and queen ; and on the 
dish was the last fragment of black bread, and in the 
vessel, full and clear, the water from the spring that 
bubbled up everlastingly through the bones of the dead 
city. 

Beyond this innermost space, round a basin of rock, 


* The Welch seem to have had a profusion of the precious 
metals, very disproportioned to the scarcity of their coined money. 
To say nothing of the torques, bracelets, and even breast-plates 
of gold, common with their numereus chiefs, their laws affix to 
offences penalties which attest the prevalent waste both of gold 
and silver. Thus, an insult to a sub-king of Aberfraw, is atoned 
by a silver rod as thick as the king’s little finger, which is in length 
to reach from the ground to his mouth when sitting; and a gold 
cup, with a cover as broad as the king’s face, and the thickness of 
a ploughman’s nail, or the shell of a goose’s egg. I suspect that 
it was precisely because the Welch coined little or no money, that 
the metals they possessed became thus common in domestic use. 
Gold would have been more rarely seen, even amongst the Peru- 
vians, had they coined it iuto money. 


HAROLD . 


365 


through which the stream overflowed as from an artificial 
conduit, lay the wounded and exhausted, crawling, turn 
by turn, to the lips of the basin, and happy that the 
thirst of fever saved them from the gnawing desire of 
food. A wan and spectral figure glided listlessly to and 
fro amidst those mangled, and parched, and dying groups 
This personage, in happier times, filled the office of phy- 
sician to the court, and was placed twelfth in rank amidst 
the chiefs of the household. And for cure of the “ three 
deadly wounds,” the cloven skull, or the gaping viscera, 
or the broken limb (all three classed alike), large should 
have been his fee.* But fee-less went he now from mat. 
to man, with his red ointment and his muttered charm ; 
and those over whom he shook his lean face and matted 
locks, smiled ghastly at that sign that release and death 
were near. Within the enclosures, either lay supine, or 
stalked restless, the withered remains of the wild army. 
A sheep, and a horse, and a dog, were yet left them all 
to share for the day’s meal. And the fire of flickering 
and crackling brushwood burned bright from a hollow 
amidst the loose stones ; but the animals were yet unslain, 
and the dog crept by the fire, winking at it with dim 
eyes. 

But over the lower part of the wall nearest to the 
barrow, leant three men. The wall there was so broken, 
that they could gaze over it on that grotesque yet dismal 
court ; and the eyes of the three men, with a fierce and 
wolfish glare, were bent on Gryffyth. 

* 


31 * 


Leges Wallicae. 


366 


HAROLD. 


Three princes were they of the great old line ; far as 
GryfFyth they traced the fabulous honors of their race, 
to Hu-Gadarn and Prydain, and each thought it shame 
that Gryffyth should be lord over him ! Each had had 
throne and court of his own; each his “white palace” 
of peeled willow wauds — poor substitutes, 0 kings, for 
the palaces and towers that the arts of Rome had be- 
queathed your fathers! And each had been subjugated 
by the son of Llewyllyn, when, in his day of might, he 
reunited under his sole sway all the multiform principali- 
ties of Wales, and regained, for a moment’s splendor, 
the throne of Roderic the Great. 

“Is it,” said Owain, in a hollow whisper, “for yon 
man, whom Heaven hath deserted, who could not keep 
his very torque from the gripe of the Saxon, that we are 
to die on these hills, gnawing the flesh from our bones ? 
Think ye not the hour is come?” 

“ The hour will come, when the sheep, and the horse, 
and the dog are devoured,” replied Modred, “ and when 
the whole force, as one man, will cry +o Gryffyth, ‘ Thou 
a king! — give us bread!’” 

“It is well,” said the third, an old man, leaning on a 
wand of solid silver, while the mountain wind, sweeping 
between the walls, played with the rags of his robe, — 
“it is well that the night’s sally, less of war than of 
linger, was foiled even of forage and food. Had the 
iaints been with Gryffyth, who had dared to keep faith 
with Tostig the Saxon ? ” 

Owain laughed, a laugh hollow and false. 


HAROLD. 


367 


“Art thou Cymrian, and talkest of faith with a Saxon ? 
Faith with the spoiler, the ravisher, and butcher ? But 
a Cymrian keeps faith with revenge ; and Gryffyth’s trunk 
should be still crownless and headless, though Tostighad 
never proffered the barter of safety and food. Hist ! 
Gryffyth wakes from the black dream, and his eyes glow 
from under his hair.” 

And indeed at this moment the king raised himself on 
his elbow, and looked round with a haggard and fierce 
despair in his glittering eyes. 

“ Play to us, harper ; sing some song of the deeds of 
old ! ” 

The bard mournfully strove to sweep the harp, but the 
chords were broken, and the note came discordant and 
shrill as the sigh of a wailing fiend. 

0 king 1 ” said the bard, “ the music hath left the 
harp.” 

“Ha!” murmured Gryffyth, “and hope the earth! 
Bard, answer the son of Llewyllyn. Oft in my halls hast 
thou sung the praise of the men that have been. In the 
halls of the race to come, will bards yet unborn sweep 
their harps to the deeds of thy king ? Shall they tell of 
the lay of Torques, by Llyn-Afange, when the princes 
of Powys fled from his sword as the clouds from the blast 
of the wind ? Shall they sing, as the Hirlas goes round, 
of his steeds of the sea, when no flag came in sight of 
h prows between the dark isle of the Druid * and the 


* Mona, or Anglesea. 


BG8 


HAROLD. 


green pastures of Huerdan ? * Or the towns that he 
tired, on the lands of the Saxon, when Rolf and the 
Northmen ran fast from his javelin and spear ? Or say, 
Child of Truth, if all that is told of Gryffyth thy king 
shall be his woe and his shame ?” 

The bard swept his hand over his eyes and answered, — 

“Bards unborn shall sing of Gryffyth the son of 
Llewyllyn. But the song shall not dwell on the pomp 
of his power, when twenty sub-kings knelt at his throne, 
and his beacon was lighted in the holds of the Norman 
and Saxon. Bards shall sing of the hero, who fought 
every inch of crag and morass in the front of his men, — 
and on the heights of Penmaen-mawr, Fame recovers thy 
crown ! ” 

“ Then I have lived as my fathers in life, and shall live 
with their glory in death ! ” said Gryffyth ; “ and so the 
shadow hath passed from my soul. ,, Then turning round, 
still propped upon his elbow, he fixed his proud eye upon 
Aldyth, and said, gravely, “ Wife, pale is thy face, and 
gloomy thy brow : mournest thou the throne or the 
man ? ” 

Aldyth cast on her wild lord a look of more terror 
than compassion, a look without the grief that is gentle, 
or the love that reveres ; and answered, — 

“ What matter to thee my thoughts or my sufferings ? 
The sword or the famine is the doom thou hast chosen. 
Listening to vain dreams from thy bard, or thine owu 


* Ireland. 


HAROLD. 


369 


pride as idle, thou disdainest life for us both : be it so ; 
let us die 1 ” 

A strange blending of fondness and wrath troubled 
the pride on Gryffyth’s features, uncouth and half-savage 
as they were, but still noble and kingly. 

“ And what terror has death, if thou lovest me ? ” 
said he. 

Aldyth shivered and turned aside. The unhappy king 
gazed hard on that face, which, despite sore trial and 
recent exposure to rough wind and weather, still retained 
the proverbial beauty of the Saxon women — but beauty 
without the glow of the heart, as a landscape from which 
sun-light has vanished ; and as he gazed, the color went 
and came fitfully over his swarthy cheeks, whose hue con- 
trasted the blue of his eye, and the red tawny gold of his 
shaggy hair. 

“ Thou wouldst have me,” he said at length, “ send to 
Harold thy countryman ; thou wouldst have me, me — 
rightful lord of all Britain — beg for mercy, and sue for 
life. Ah, traitress, and child of robber-sires, fair as 
Rowena art thou, but no Vortimer am I ! Thou turnest 
in loathing from the lord whose marriage-gift was a 
crown ; and the sleek form of thy Saxon Harold rises up 
through the clouds of the carnage.” 

All the fierce and dangerous jealousy of man’s most 
human passion — when man loves and hates in a breath — 
trembled in the Cymrian’s voice, and fired his troubled 
eye ; for Aldyth’s pale cheek blushed like the rose, but 
31 * 


Y 


370 


HAROLD. 


she folded her arms haughtily on her breast, and made 
no reply. 

“ No,” said Gryffyth, grinding teeth, white * and strong 
as those of a young hound. “No, Harold in vain sent 
me the casket ; the jewel was gone. In vain thy form 
returned to my side ; thy heart was away with thy cap- 
tor : and not to save my life (were I so base as to seek 
it), but to see once more the face of him to whom this 
cold hand, in whose veins no pulse answers my own, had 
been given, if thy House had consulted its daughter, 
wouldst thou have me crouch like a lashed dog at the 
feet of my foe ? Oh shame ! shame ! shame ! Oh worst 
perfidy of all ! Oh sharp — sharper than Saxon sword 
or serpent’s tooth, is — is ” 

Tears gushed to those fierce eyes, and the proud king 
dared not trust to his voice. 

Aldyth rose coldly. “ Slay me if thou wilt — not insult 
me. I have said, ‘ Let us die ! ’ ” 

With these words, and vouchsafing no look on her 
lord, she moved away towards the largest tower or cell, 
in which the single and rude chamber it contained had 
been set apart for her. 

Gryffyth’s eye followed her, softening gradually as her 
form receded, till lost to his sight. And then that pecu- 
liar household love, which in uncultivated breasts ofteu 
survives trust and esteem, rushed back on his rough 

* The Welch were then, and still are, remarkable for the beauty 
of their teeth. Giraldus Cambrensis observes, as something very 
extraordinary, that they cleaned them 


HAROLD. 


311 


heart, and weakened it, as woman only can weaken the 
strong to whom Death is a thought of scorn. 

He signed to his bard, who, during the conference be- 
tween wife and lord, had retired to a distance, and said, 
with a writhing attempt to smile — 

“Was there truth, thinkest thou, in the legend, that 
Guenever was false to King Arthur?” 

“ No,” answered the bard, divining his lord’s thought, 
“ for Guenever survived not the king, and they were 
buried side by side in the vale of Avallon.” 

“Thou art wise in the lore of the heart, and love hath 
been thy study from youth to grey hairs. Is it love, is 
it hate, that prefers death for the loved one, to the 
thought of her life as another’s ? ” 

A look of the tenderest compassion -passed over the 
bard’s wan face, but vanished in reverence, as he bowed 
his head and answered — 

“0 king, who shall say what note the wind calls from 
the harp, or what impulse love wakes in the soul — now 
soft and now stern ? But,” he added, raising his form, 
and with a dread calm on his brow, “but the love of a 
king brooks no thought of dishonor, and she who hath 
laid her head on his breast should sleep in his grave.” 

“ Thou wilt outlive me,” said Gryfifyth, abruptly. 
“ This earn be my tomb ! ” 

“And if so,” said the bard, “thou shalt sleep not 
alone. In this earn what thou lovest best shall be buried 
by thy side ; the bard shall raise his song over thy grave, 
and the bosses of shields shall be placed at intervals, as 


372 


HAROLD. 


rises and falls the sound of song. Over the grave of 
two shall a new mound arise, and we will bid the mound 
speak to others in the far days to come. But distant yet 
be the hour when the mighty shall be laid low ! and the 
tongue of thy bard may yet chant the rush of the lion 
from the toils and the spears. Hope still ! ” 

Gryffyth, for answer, leant on the harper’s shoulder, 
and pointed silently to the sea, that lay lake-like at the 
distance, dark — studded with the Saxon fleet. Then 
turning, his hand stretched over the forms that, hollow- 
eyed and ghost-like, flitted between the walls, or lay 
dying, but mute, around the water-spring. His hand 
then dropped, and rested on the hilt of his sword. 

At this moment there was a sudden commotion at the 
outer entrance of the wall ; the crowd gathered to one 
spot, and there was a loud hum of voices. In a few mo- 
ments one of the Welch scouts came into the enclosure, 
and the chiefs of the royal tribes followed him to the 
earn on which the king stood. 

“Of what tellest thou?” said Grylfyth, resuming on 
the instant all the royalty of his bearing. 

“At the mouth of the pass,” said the scout, kneeling, 
“ there are a monk bearing the holy rood, arid a chief, 
unarmed. And the monk is Evan, the Cymrian, of 
Gwentland; and the chief, by his voice, seemeth not to 
be Saxon. The monk bade me give thee these tokens” 
(and the scout displayed the broken torque which the 
king had left in the grasp of Harold, together with a live 
falcon belled and blinded), “ and bade me say thus to the 


HAROLD. 


37? 


king — Harold the Earl greets Gryffyth, son of Llewellyn, 
and sends him, in proof of good-will, the richest prize 
he hath ever won from a foe ; and a hawk, from Llan- 
dudno ; — that bird which chief and equal give to equal 
and chief. And he prays Gryffyth, son of Llewellyn, for 
the sake of his realm and his people, to grant hearing 
to his nuncius.” 

A murmur broke from the chiefs — a murmur of joy 
and surprise from all, save the three conspirators, who 
interchanged anxious and fiery glances. Gryffyth’s hand 
had already closed, while he uttered a cry that seemed 
of rapture, on the collar of gold ; for the loss of that 
collar had stung him, perhaps, more than the loss of the 
crown of all Wales. And his heart, so generous and 
large, amidst all its rude passions, was touched by the 
speech and the tokens that honored the fallen outlaw, 
both as foe and as king. Yet in his face there was still 
seen a moody and proud struggle ; he paused before he 
turned to the chiefs. 

“What counsel ye — ye strong in battle, and wise in 
debate ?” said he. 

With one voice all, save the Fatal Three, exclaimed : 

“Hear the monk, 0 king!” 

“Shall we dissuade?” whispered Modred to the old 
chief, his accomplice. 

“No ; for so doing, we shall offend all: — and we must 
win all.” 

Then the bard stepped into the ring. And the ring 

I. — 32 


V74 


HAROLD. 


was hushed, for wise is ever the counsel of him whose 
book is the human heart. 

“ Hear the Saxons,” said he, briefly, and with an air 
of command when adressing others, which contrasted 
strongly his tender respect to the king ; “ hear the 
Saxons, but not in these walls. Let no man from the 
foe see our strength or our weakness. We are still 
mighty and impregnable, while our dwelling is in the 
realm of the Unknown. Let the king, and his officers 
of state, and his chieftains of battle, descend to the pass. 
And behind, at the distance, let the spearsmen range 
from cliff to cliff, as a ladder of steel ; so will their 
numbers seem the greater.” 

“ Thou speakest well,” said the king. 

Meanwhile, the knight and the monk waited below at 
that terrible pass,* which then lay between mountain 
and river, and over which the precipices frowned, with a 
sense of horror and weight. Looking up, the knight 
murmured — 

“With those stones and crags to roll down on a 
marching army, the place well defies storm and assault ; 
and a hundred on the height would overmatch thousands 
below.” 

He then turned to address a few words, with all the 
far-famed courtesy of Norman and Frank, to the Welch 
guards at the outpost. They were picked men ; the 
strongest and best armed and best fed of the group. But 

* I believe it was not till the last century that a good road took 
the place of this pass 


HAROLD. 


375 


they shook their heads and answered not, gazing at him 
fiercely and showing their white teeth, as dogs at a bear 
before they are loosened from the band. 

“ They understand me not, poor languageless savages !” 
said Mallet de Graville, turning to the monk, who stood 
by with the lifted rood ; “ speak to them in their own 
jargon.” 

“ Nay,” said the Welch monk, who, though of a rival 
tribe from South Wales, and at the service of Harold, 
was esteemed throughout the land for piety and learning, 
“they will not open mouth till the king’s orders come to 
receive, or dismiss us unheard.” 

“Dismiss us unheard !” repeated the punctilious Nor- 
man ; “ even this poor barbarous king can scarcely be so 
strange to all comely aud gentle usage, as to put such 
insult on Guillaume Mallet de Graville. But,” added 
the knight, coloring, “ I forgot that he is not advised of 
my name and land ; and, indeed, sith thou art to be 
spokesman, I marvel why Harold should have prayed my 
service at all, at the risk of subjecting a Norman knight 
to affronts contumelious.” 

“ Peradventure,” replied Evan, “ peradventure thou 
hast something to whisper apart to the king, which, as 
stranger and warrior, none will venture to question ; but 
which from me, as countryman and priest, would excite 
the jealous suspicions of those around him.” 

“I conceive thee,” said De Graville. “And see, 
spears are gleaming down the path ; and, per pedes 
Domini , yon chief with the mantle, and circlet of gold 


376 


HAROLD. 


on his head, is the cat-king that so spitted and scratched 
ik the melee last night.’’ 

“Heed well thy tongue,” said Evan, alarmed; “no 
jests with the leader of men.” 

“ Knowest thou, good monk, that a facete and mor.t 
gentil Roman (if the saintly writer, from whom I take 
the citation, reports aright — for alas ! I know not where 
myself tc purchase, or to steal, one copy of Horatius 
Flaccus) hath said, ‘ Dulce est desipere in loco . 1 It is 
sweet to jest, but not within reach of claws, whether of 
kaisars or cats.” 

Therewith the knight drew up his spare but stately 
figure ; and, arranging his robe with grace and dignity, 
awaited the coming chief. 

Down the pass, one by one, came first the chiefs, 
privileged by birth to attend the king ; and each, as he 
reached the mouth of the pass, drew on the upper side, 
among the stones of the rough ground. Then a banner, 
tattered and torn, with the lion ensign that the Welch 
princes had substituted for the old national dragon, 
which the Saxons of Wessex had appropriated to them- 
selves,* preceded the steps of the king. Behind him 

* The Saxons of Wessex seem to have adopted the dragon for 
their ensign, from an early period. It was probably for this reason 
that it was assumed by Edward Ironsides, as tire hero of the Saxons; 
the principality of Wessex forming the most important portion of 
the pure Saxon race, while its founder was the ancestor of the 
imperial house of Basileus of Britain. The dragon seems also to 
have been a Norman ensign. The lions or leopards, popularly 
assigned to the Conqueror, are certainly a later invention. There 


II A R 0 L D . 


371 


came his falconer and bard, and the rest of his scanty 
household. The king halted in the pass, a few steps 
from the Norman knight ; and Mallet de Graville, though 
accustomed to the majestic mien of Duke William, and 
the practised state of the princes of France and Flan-i 
ders, felt an involuntary thrill of admiration at the bear- 
ii g of the great child of Nature with his foot on his 
fathers’ soil. 

Small and slight as was his stature, worn and ragged 
his mantle of state, there was that in the erect mien and 
steady eye of the Cymrian hero, which showed one con- 
scious of authority, and potent in will ; and the wave of 
his hand to the knight was the gesture of a prince on his 
throne. Nor, indeed, was that brave and ill-fated chief 
without some irregular gleams of mental cultivation, 
which, under happier auspices, might have centered into 
steadfast light. Though the learning which had once ex- 
isted iu Wales (the last legacy of Rome) had long since 
expired in broil and blood, and youths no longer flocked 
to the colleges of Caerleon, and priests no longer adorned 
the casuistical theology of the age, Gryffyth himself, the 


is no appearance of them on the banners and shields of the Norman 
army in the Bayeux tapestry. Armorial bearings were in use 
amongst the Welch, and even the Saxons, long before heraldry was 
reduced to a science by the Franks and Normans ; and the dragon, 
which is supposed by many critics to be borrowed from the east, 
through the Saracens, certainly existed as an armorial ensign with 
the Cymrians before they could have had any obligation to the 
Bongs and legends of that people. 

32 * 


318 


HAROLD. 


son of a wise and famous father,* had received an educa 
tion beyond the average of Saxon kings. But, intensely 
national, his mind had turned from all other literature, 
to the legends, and songs, and chronicles of his land ; and 
.if he is the best scholar who best understands his own 
tongue and its treasures, Gryffyth was the most erudite 
prince of his age. His natural talents, for war especially, 
were considerable ; and judged fairly — not as mated with 
an empty treasury, without other army than the capri- 
cious will of his subjects afforded ; and, amidst his bitter- 
est foes in the jealous chiefs of his own country, against 
the disciplined force and comparative civilization of the 
Saxon — but as compared with all the other princes of 
Wales, in warfare, to which he was habituated, and in 
which chances were even, the fallen son of Llewellyn had 
been the most renowned leader that Cymry had known 
since the death of the great Roderic. 

So there he stood ; his attendants ghastly with famine, 
drawn up on the unequal ground ; above, on the heights, 
and rising from the stone crags, long lines of spears art- 
fully placed ; and, watching him with deathful eyes, some- 
what in his rear, the Traitor Three. 

“ Speak, father, or chief,” said the Welch king in his 
native tongue ; “ what would Harold the earl, of Gryffyth 
the king ? ” 

Then the monk took up the word and spoke. 

* “ In whose time the earth brought forth double, and there was 
neither beggar nor poor man from the North to the South Sea.” — 
Powell’s Hist, of Wales, p. 88. 


HAROLD. 


3 U 


“ Health to Gryffyth-ap-Llewellyn, his chiefs and his 
people 1 Thus saith Harold, King Edward’s thegn : — 
By land, all the passes are watched ; by sea, all the waves 
are our own. Our swords rest in our sheaths ; but Famine 
marches each hour to gride and to slay. Instead of sure 
death from the hunger, take sure life from the foe. Free 
pardon to all, chiefs and people, and safe return to their 
homes, — save Gryffyth alone. Let him come forth, not 
as victim and outlaw, not with bent form and clasped 
hands, but as chief meeting chief, with his household of 
state. Harold will meet him, in honor, at the gates of 
the fort. Let Gryffyth submit to King Edward, and ride 
with Harold to the Court of the Basileus. Harold 
promises him life, and will plead for his pardon. And 
though the peace of this realm, and the fortune of war, 
forbid Harold to say, ‘ Thou shalt yet be a king ; ’ yet thy 
crown, son of Llewellyn, shall at least be assured in the 
line of thy fathers, and the race of Cadwallader shall still 
reign in Cymry.” 

The monk paused, and hope and joy were in the faces 
of the famished chiefs ; while two of the Traitor Three 
suddenly left their post, and sped to tell the message to 
the spearmen and multitudes above. Modred, the third 
conspirator, laid his hand on his hilt, and stole near to 
see the face of the king ; the face of the king was dark 
and angry, as a midnight of storm. 

Then, raising the cross on high, Evan resumed. 

“And I, though of the people of Gwentland, which the 
arms of Gryffyth have wasted, and whose prince fell be* 


380 


HAROLD 


neath Gryffyth’s sword on the hearth of his hall I, as 
God’s servant, the brother of all I behold, and, as son of 
the soil, mourning over the slaughter of its latest defend- 
ers, I, by this symbol of love and command, which I 

raise to the heaven, adjure thee, 0 king, to give ear to 
the mission of peace,, — to cast down the grim pride of 
earth. And, instead of the crown of a day, fix thy hopes 
on the crown everlasting. For much shall be pardoned 
to thee in thine hour of pomp and of conquest, if now 
thou savest from doom and from death the last lives over 
which thou art lord.” 

It was during this solemn appeal that the knight, 
marking the sign announced to him, and, drawing close 
to Gryffyth, pressed the ring into the king’s hand, and 
whispered, — 

“ Obey by this pledge. Thou knowest Harold is true, 
and thy head is sold by thine own people.” 

The king cast a haggard eye at the speaker, and then 
at the ring, over which his hand closed with a convulsive 
spasm. And, at that dread instant, the man prevailed 
over the king ; and far away from people and monk, from 
adjuration and duty, fled his heart on the wdngs of the 
storm — fled to the cold wife he distrusted ; and the pledge 
that should assure -him of life, seemed as a love-token 
insulting his fall : — Amidst all the roar of roused pas- 
sions, loudest of all was the hiss of the jealous fiend. 

As the monk ceased, the thrill of the audience was 
perceptible, and a deep silence was followed by a general 
murmur, as if to constrain the king. 


HARO LD. 


381 


Then the pride of the despot chief rose up to second 
the wrath of the suspecting man. The red spot flushed 
the dark cheek, and he tossed the neglected hair from his 
brow. 

He made one stride towards the monk, and said, in a 
voice loud, and deep, and slow, rolling far up the hill, — 

“ Monk, thou hast said ; and now hear the reply of the 
son of Llewellyn, the true heir of Roderic the Great, who 
from the heights of Eryri saw all the lands of the Cytn- 
rian sleeping under the dragon of TTther. King was I 
born, and king will I die. I will not ride by the side of 
the Saxon to the feet of Edward, the son of the spoiler. 
I will not, to purchase base life, surrender the claim, vain 
before men and the hour, but solemn before God and 
posterity — the claim of my line and my people. All 
Britain is ours — all the Island of Pines. And the child- 
ren of Hengist are traitors and rebels — not the heirs of 
Ambrosius and Uther. Say to Harold the Saxon, Ye 
have left us but the tomb of the Druid and the hills of 
the eagle ; but freedom and royalty are ours, in life and 
in death — not for you to demand them, not for us to be- 
tray. Nor fear ye, 0 my chiefs, few, but unmatched in 
glory and truth ; fear not ye to perish by the hunger thus 
denounced as our doom, on these heights that command 
the fruits of our own fields ! No, die we may, but not 
mute and revengeless. Go back, whispering warrior ; 
go back, false son of Cymry — and tell Harold to look 
well to his walls and his trenches. We will vouchsafe 
him grace for his grace — we will not take him by sur« 


882 


HAROLD. 


prise, nor under cloud of the night. With the gif am of 
ur spears and the clash of our shields, we will come from 
the hill ; and, famine-worn as he deems us, hold a feast 
in his walls which the eagles of Snowdon spread their 
pinions to share ! ” 

“Rash man and unhappy!” cried the monk.; “what 
curse drawest thou down on thy head ! Wilt thou be the 
murtherer of thy men, in strife unavailing and vain ? 
Heaven holds thee guilty of all the blood thou shalt 
cause to be shed.” 

“Be dumb! — hush thy screech, lying raven!” ex- 
claimed Gryffyth, his eyes darting fire, and his slight form 
dilating. “ Once, priest and monk went before us to in- 
spire, not to daunt ; and our cry, Allelulia ! was taught 
us by the saints of the Church, on the day when Saxons, 
fierce and many as Harold’s, fell on the field of Maes- 
Garmon. No, the curse is on the head of the invader, 
not on those who defend hearth and altar. Yea, as the 
song to the bard, the curse leaps Ihrough my veins, and 
rushes forth from my lips. By the land they have 
ravaged ; by the gore they have spilt ; on these crags, our 
last refuge ; below the earn on yon heights, where the 
Dead stir to hear me, — I launch the curse of the wronged 
and the doomed on the children of Hengist ! They in 
turn shall know the steel of the stranger — their crown 
shall be shivered as glass, and their nobles be as slaves 
in the land. And the line of Hengist and Cerdic shall 
be rased from the roll of empire. And the ghosts of our 
fathers shall glide, appeased, over the grave of their 


HAROLD. 38S 

nation. But we — we, though weak in the body, in the 
soul shall be strong to the last ! The ploughshare may 
pass over our cities, but the soil shall be trod by our 
steps, and our deeds keep our language alive in the songs 
of our bards. Nor, in the great Judgment Day, shall 
any race but the race of Cymry rise from their graves 
in this corner of earth, to answer for the sins of the 
brave ! J * 

So impressive the voice, so grand the brow, and sub- 
lime the wild gesture of the king, as he thus spoke, that 
not only the monk himself was awed ; not only, though 
he understood not the words, did the Norman knight 
bow his head, as a child when the lightning he fears as 
by instinct, flashes out from the cloud, — but even the 
sullen and wide-spreading discontent at work among most 
of the chiefs was arrested for a moment. But the spear- 
men and multitude above, excited by the tidings of safety 
to life, and worn out by repeated defeat, and the dread 

* “ During tho military expeditions made in our days against 
South Wales, an old Welchman at Pencadair, who had faithfully 
adhered to him (Henry II.), being desired to give his opinion about 
the royal army, and whether he thought that of the rebels would 
make resistance, and what he thought would be the final event of 
this war, replied: ‘This nation, 0 king, may now, as in former 
times, be harassed, and, in a great measure, be weakened and de- 
stroyed by you and other powers: and it will often prevail by its 
laudable exertions, but it can never be totally subdued by the 
wrath of man, unless the wrath of God shall concur. Nor do I 
think that any other nation than this of Wales, or any other language 
{whatever may hereafter come to pass), shall in the day of severe ex- 
amination before the Supreme Judge answer for this corner of tk* 
•arth / ’ *’ — Hoark’s Giraldus Cambrensis , vol. i. p. 361. 


384 


HAROLD. 


fear of famine, too remote to hearthe kii.g, were listening 
eagerly to the insidious addresses of the two stealthy con- 
spirators, creeping from rank to rank ; and already they 
began to sway and move, and sweep slowly down towards 
the king. 

Recovering his surprise, the Norman again neared 
Gryffyth, and began to re-urge his mission of peace. But 
the chief waved him back sternly, and said aloud, though 
in Saxon : — 

“No secrets can pass between Harold and me. This 
much alone, take thou back as answer: — I thank the 
earl, for rnyself, my queen, and my people. Noble have 
been his courtesies, as foe ; as foe I thank him — as king, 
defy. The torque he hath returned to my hand, he shall 
see again ere the sun set. Messengers, ye are answered. 
Withdraw, and speed fast, that we may pass not your 
steps on the road.” 

The monk sighed, and cast a look of holy compassion 
over the circle ; and a pleased man was he to see in the 
faces of most there, that the king was alone in his fierce 
defiance. Then lifting again the rood, he turned away, 
an 1 with him went the Norman. 

The retirement of the messengers was the signal for 
one burst of remonstrance from the chiefs — the signal for 
the voice and the deeds of the Fatal Three. Down from 
the heights sprang and rushed the angry and turbulent 
multitudes ; round the king came the bard and the 
falconer, and some faithful few. 

The great uproar of many voices caused the monk 


HAROLD. 


385 


and the knight to pause abruptly in their descent, and 
turn to look behind. They could see the crowd rushing 
down from the higher steeps ; but on the spot itself which 
they had so lately left, the nature of the ground only per- 
mitted a confused view of spear-points, lifted swords, and 
heads crowned with shaggy locks, swaying to and fro. 

“ What means all this commotion ?” asked the knight, 
with his hand on his sword. 

“ Hist ! ” said the monk, pale as ashes, and leaning for 
support upon the cross. 

Suddenly, above the hubbub, was heard the voice of 
the king, in accents of menace and wrath, singularly dis- 
tinct and clear ; it was followed by a moment’s silence — 
a moment’s silence followed by the clatter of arms, a yell, 
and a howl, and the indescribable shock of men. 

And suddenly again was heard a voice that seemed 
that of the king, but no longer distinct and 'dear ! — was 
it laugh? — was it gr^LL l 

All was hushed ; the monk was on his knees in prayer ; 
the knight’s sword was bare in his hand. All was hushed 
— and the spears stood still in the air; when there was 
again a cry, as multitudinous but less savage than before. 
And the Welch came down the pass, and down the crags. 

The knight placed his back to a rock. “ They have 
orders to murther us,” he murmured ; “ but woe to the 
fiist who come within reach of my sword ! ” 

Down swarmed the Welchmen, nearer and nearer ; and 
in the midst of them three chiefs — the Fatal Three. And 
the old chief bore in his hand a pole or spear, and on tne 
I. — 33 


z 


386 


HAROLD. 


top of that spear, trickling gore step by step, was the 
trunkless head of Gryffyth the king. 

“ This,’’ said the old chief, as he drew near, “ this is 
our answer to Harold the earl. We will go with ye.” 

“ Food 1 food 1 ” cried the multitude. 

And the three chiefs (one on either side the trunkless 
head that the third bore aloft) whispered, “We are 
avenged 1 ” 


*ND Of THE flBST VOLUME. 


HAROLD 


VOL. II. 



HAROLD, 

THE LAST OF THE SAXON KINGS. 


BOOK EIGHTH. 

FATE. 


CHAPTER I. 

Some days after the tragical event with which the last 
chapter closed, the ships of the Saxons were assembled 
in the wide waters of Conway; and on the small fore- 
deck of the stateliest vessel, stood Harold, bare-headed, 
before Aldyth the widowed queen. For the faithful bard 
had fallen by the side of his lord ; . . . . the dark pro- 
mise was unfulfilled, and the mangled clay of the jealous 
Gryffyth slept alone in the narrow bed. A chair of state, 
with dossell and canopy, was set for the daughter of 
Algar, and behind, stood maidens of Wales, selected in 
haste for her attendants. 

But Aldyth had not seated herself; and, side by side 
with her dead lord’s great victor, thus she spoke: — 

“Woe worth the day and the hour when Aldyth left 
1 * (&) 


6 


HAROLD. 


the hall of her fathers, and the land of her birth ! Her 
robe of a queen has been rent and torn over an aching 
heart, and the air she has breathed has reeked as with 
blood. I go forth, widowed, and homeless, and lonely ; 
but my feet shall press the soil of my sires, and my lips 
draw the breath which came sweet and pure to my child- 
hood. And thou, 0 Harold, standest beside me, like the 
shape of my own youth, and the dreams of old come back 
at the sound of thy voice. Fare thee well, noble heart, 
and true Saxon. Thou hast twice saved the child of thy 
foe — first from shame, then from famine. Thou wouldst 
have saved my dread lord from open force, and dark 
murder ; but the saints were wroth, the blood of my 
kinsfolk, shed by his hand, called for vengeance, and the 
shrines he had pillaged and burned murmured doom from 
their desolate altars. Peace be with the dead, and peace 
with the living ! I shall go back to my father and 
brethren ; and if the fame and life of child and sister be 
dear to them, their swords will never more leave their 
sheaths against Harold. So thy hand, and God guard 
thee 1 ” 

Harold raised to his lips the hand which the queen 
extended to him ; and to Aldyth now seemed restored 
Ihe rare beauty of her youth ; as pride and sorrow gave 
her the charm of emotion, which love and duty had failed 
to bestow. 

“ Life and health to thee, noble lady,” said the earl 
“ Tell thy kindred from me, that for thy sake, and thy 
grandsire’s, I would fain be their brother and friend; 


HAROLD. 


7 


were they but united with me, all England were now safe 
against every foe, and each peril. Thy daughter already 
awaits thee in the halls of Morcar ; and when time has 
scarred the wounds of the past, may the joys re-bloom 
in the face of thy child. Farewell, noble Aldyth!” 

He dropped the hand he had held till then, turned 
slowly to the side of the vessel, and re-entered his boat. 
As he was rowed back to shore, the horn gave the signal 
for raising anchor, and the ship righting itself, moved 
majestically through the midst of the fleet. But Aldyth 
still stood erect, and her eyes followed the boat that bore 
away the secret love of her youth. 

As Harold reached the shore, Tostig and the Norman, 
who had been conversing amicably together on the beach, 
advanced towards the earl. 

‘‘Brother,” said Tostig smiling, “it were easy for thee 
to console the fair widow, and bring to our House all the 
force of East Anglia and Mercia.” Harold’s face slightly 
changed, but he made no answer. 

“A marvellous fair dame,” s?’'d the Norman, “ notwith- 
standing her cheek be somewhat pinched, and the hue 
sunburnt. And I wonder not that the poor cat-king kept 
her so close to his side.” 

“ Sir Norman,” said the earl, hastening to change the 
subject, “the war is now over, and, for long years, Wales 
will leave our marches in peace. — This eve I propose to 
ride nence towards London, and we will converse by the 
way.” 

“ Go y )u so soon ? ” cried the knight, surprised. “ Shall 


b 


HAROLD. 


you not take means utterly to subjugate this troublesome 
race, parcel out the lands among your thegns, to hold as 
martial fiefs at need, build towers and forts on the heights, 
and at the river-mouths? — where a site, like this, for 
some fair castle and vawmure ? In a word, do you Saxons 
merely overrun, and neglect to hold what you win ?” 

“We fight in self-defence, not for conquest, Sir Nor- 
man. We have no skill in building castles; and I pray 
you not to hint to my thegns the conceit of dividing a 
land, as thieves would their plunder. King Gryffyth is 
dead, and his brothers will reign in his stead. England 
has guarded her realm, and chastised the aggressors. 
What need England do more ? We are not like our first 
barbarous fathers, carving out homes with the scythe of 
their saexes. The wave settles after the flood r and the 
races of men after lawless convulsions. ” 

Tostig smiled, in disdain, at the knight, who mused a 
little over the strange words be had heard, and then 
silently followed the earl to the fort. 

But when Harold gained his chamber, he found there 
an express, arrived in haste from Chester, with the news, 
that Algar, the sole enemy and single rival of his power, 
was no more. Fever, occasioned by neglected wounds, 
had stretched him impotent on a bed of sickness, and his 
fierce passions had aided the march of disease ; the rest- 
less and profitless race was run. 

The first emotion which these tidings called forth, was 
that of pain. The bold sympathize with the bold; and 
in great hearts, there is always a certain friendship for a 


HAROLD. 


ft 

gallant foe. But recovering the shock of that first im- 
pression, Harold could not but feel that England was 
freed from its most dangerous subject — himself from the 
only obstacle apparent to the fulfilment of his luminous 
career. 

“ Now, then, to London, ” whispered the voice of his 
ambition. “ Not a foe rests to trouble the peace of that 
empire which thy conquests, 0 Harold, have made more 
secure and compact than ever yet has been the realm of 
the Saxon kings. Thy way through the country that 
thou hast henceforth delivered from the fire and sword 
of the mountain ravager, will be one march of triumph, 
like a Roman’s of old ; and the voice of the people will 
echo the hearts of the army ; those hearts are thine own. 
Yerily Hilda is a prophetess; and when Edward rests 
with the saints, from what English heart will not burst 
the cry, ‘Long live Harold the King?’” 


CHAPTER II. 

Tiie Norman rode by the side of Harold, in the rear 
of the victorious armament. The ships sailed to their 
havens, and Tostig departed to his northern earldom. 

“And now,” said Harold, “I am at leisure to thank 
thee, brave Norman, for more than thine aid in council 
and war — at leisure now to turn to the last prayer of 
Sweyn, and the often-shed tears of Githa my mother, for 




10 


HAROLD. 


Wolnoth the exile. Thou seest with thine own eyes that 
there is no longer pretext or plea for thy count to detain 
these hostages. Thou shalt hear from Edward himself 
that he no longer asks sureties for the faith of the House 
of Godwin ; and I cannot think that Duke William would 
have suffered thee to bring me over this news from the 
dead if he were not prepared to do justice to the living.” 

“Your speech, Earl of Wessex, goes near to the truth. 
But, to speak plainly and frankly, I think William, my 
lord, hath a keen desire to welcome in person a chief so 
illustrious as Harold, and I guess that he keeps the host- 
ages to make thee come to claim them.” The knight, as 
he spoke, smiled gaily; but the cunning of the Norman 
gleamed in the quick glance of his clear hazel eye. 

“ Fain must I feel pride at such wish, if you flatter me 
not,” said Harold ; “ and I would gladly myself, now the 
land is in peace, and my presence not needful, visit a 
court of such fame. I hear high praise from cheapman 
and pilgrim of Count William’s wise care for barter and 
trade, and might learn much from the ports of the Seine 
that would profit the marts of the Thames. Much, too, 
I hear of Count William’s zeal to revive the learning of 
the Church, aided by Lanfranc the Lombard ; much I 
hear of the pomp of his buildings, and the grace of his 
court. All this would I cheerfully cross the ocean to 
see ; but all this would but sadden my heart if I returned 
without Haco and Wolnoth.” 

“I dare not speak so as to plight faith for the duke,” 
said the Norman, who, though sharp to deceive, had that 


HAROLD. 


11 


rein on his conscience that it did not let him openly lie ; 
“but this I do know, that there are few things in hii 
countdom which my lord would not give to clasp the 
right hand of Harold, and feel assured of his friendship.” 

Though wise and far-seeing, Harold was not suspicious ; 
— no Englishman, unless it were Edward himself, knew 
the secret pretensions of William to the English throne ; 
and he answered simply : — 

“It were well, indeed, both for Normandy and Eng- 
land, both against foes and for trade, to be allied and 
well-liking. I will think over your words, Sire de Gra- 
ville, and it shall not be my fault if old feuds be not for- 
gotten, and those now in thy court be the last hostages 
ever kept by the Norman for the faith of the Saxon.” 

With that he turned the discourse ; and the aspiring 
and able envoy, exhilarated by the hope of a successful 
mission, animated the way by remarks — alternately lively 
and shrewd — which drew the brooding earl from those 
musings which had now grown habitual to a mind once 
clear and open as the day. 

Harold had not miscalculated the enthusiasm his vic- 
tories had excited. Where he passed, all the towns poured 
forth their populations to see and to hail him ; and on 
arriving at the metropolis, the rejoicings in his honor 
seemed to equal those which had greeted, at the acces- 
sion of Edward, the restoration of the line of Cerdic. 

According to the barbarous custom of the age, the 
head of the unfortunate sub-king, and the prow of his 
special war-ship, had been sent to Edward as the trophies 


12 


HAROLD 


of conquest : but Harold’s uniform moderation respected 
the living. The race of Gryffyth * were re-established 
on the tributary throne of that hero, in the persons of his 
brothers, Blethgent and Rigwatle, “ and they swore 
oaths,” says the graphic old chronicler, “and delivered 
hostages to the king and the earl that they would be 
faithful to him in all things, and be everywhere ready for 
him, by water and by land, and make such renders from 
the land as had been done before to any other king.” 

Not long after this, Mallet de Graville returned to Nor- 
mandy, with gifts for William from King Edward, and 
special requests from that prince, as well as from the earl, 
to restore the hostages. But Mallet’s acuteness readily 
perceived, that in much, Edward’s mind had been alienated 
from William. It was clear, that the duke’s marriage, 
and the pledges that had crowned the union, were dis- 
tasteful to the asceticism of the saint-king: and with 
Godwin’s death, and Tostig’s absence from the court, 
seemed to have expired all Edward’s bitterness towards 
that powerful family of which Harold was now the head. 
Still, as no subject out of the house of Cerdic had ever 
yet been elected to the Saxon throne, there was no ap- 
prehension on Mallet’s mind that in Harold was the true 
rival to William’s cherished aspirations. Though Ed- 
ward the Atheling was dead, his son Edgar lived, the 
natural heir to the throne ; and the Norman (whose liege 
had succeeded to the duchy at the age of eight) was not 

* Gryffyth left a son, Caradoc ; but he was put aside as a minor, 
according to the Saxon customs. 


HAROLD. 


IS 


sufficiently cognizant of the invariaole custom of the 
Anglo-Saxons, to set aside, whether for kingdoms or for 
earldoms, all claimants unfitted for rule by their tender 
years. He could indeed perceive that the young Athel 
ing’s minority was in favor of his Norman liege, and 
would render him but a weak defender of the realm, and 
that there seemed no popular attachment to the infant 
orphan of the Germanized exile : his name was never 
mentioned at the court, nor had Edward acknowledged 
him as heir, — a circumstance which he interpreted aus- 
piciously for William. Nevertheless, it was clear that, 
both at court and amongst the people, the Norman in- 
fluence in England was at the lowest ebb ; and that the 
only man who could restore it, and realize the cherished 
dreams of his grasping lord, was Harold the all-powerful. 


CHAPTER III. 

Trusting, for the time, to the success of Edward’s 
urgent demand for the release of his kinsmen, as well as 
his own, Harold was now detained at the court by all 
those arrears of business which had accumulated fast 
under the inert hands of the monk-king during the pro- 
longed campaigns against the Welch ; but he had leisure 
at least for frequent visits to the old Roman house ; and 
those visits were not more grateful to his love than to the 
harder and more engrossing passion which divided his 
heart. 

II.— 2 


u 


HAROLD. 


The nearer he grew to the dazzling object, to the pos- 
session of which Fate seemed to have shaped all circum- 
stances, the more he felt the charm of those mystic in- 
fluences which his colder reason had disdained. He who 
is ambitious of things afar, and uncertain, passes at once 
into the Poet-Land of Imagination ; to aspire and to 
imagine are yearnings twin-born. 

When in his fresh youth and his calm lofty manhood, 
Harold saw action, how adventurous soever, limited to 
the barriers of noble duty ; when he lived but for his 
country, all spread clear before his vision in the sunlight 
of day ; but as the barriers receded, while the horizon 
extended, his eye left the Certain to rest on the Yague. 
As self, though still half concealed from his conscience, 
gradually assumed the wide space love of country had 
filled, the maze of delusion commenced ; he was to shape 
fate out of circumstance, — no longer defy fate through 
virtue ; and thus Hilda became to him as a voice that 
answered the questions of his own restless heart. He 
needed encouragement from the Unknown to sanction 
his desires and confirm his ends. But Edith, rejoicing in 
the fair fame of her betrothed, and content in the pure 
rapture of beholding him again, reposed in the divine 
credulity of the happy hour ; she marked not, in Harold’s 
visits, that, on entrance, the earl’s eye sought first the 
stern face of the Yala — she wondered not why those two 
conversed in whispers together, or stood so often at 
moonlight by the Runic grave. Alone, of all woman- 
kind, she felt that Harold loved her,— that that love had 


HAROLD. 


15 


braved time, absence, change, and hope deferred ; — and 
Bhe knew not that what love has most to dread in the 
wild heart of aspiring man, is not persons, but things, — 
is not things, but their symbols. 

So weeks and months rolled on, and Duke William re- 
turned no answer to the demands for his hostages. And 
Harold’s heart smote him, that he neglected his brother’s 
prayer and his mother’s accusing tears. 

m 

How Githa, since the death of her husband, had lived 
in seclusion and apart from town ; and one day Harold 
was surprised by her unexpected arrival at the large tim- 
bered house in London, which had passed to his posses- 
sion. As she abruptly entered the room in which he sate, 
he sprang forward to welcome and embrace her ; but she 
waved him back with a grave and mournful gesture, and, 
sinking on one knee, she said thus : — 

“ See, the mother is a suppliant to the son for the son 
Ho, Harold, no — I will not rise till thou hast heard me. 
Four years, long and lonely, have I lingered and pined, 
— long years ! Will my boy know his mother again? 
Thou hast said to me, ‘Wait till the messenger returns.’ 
1 have waited. Thou hast said, ‘ This time the count 
cannot resist the demand of the king.’ I bowed my head 
and submitted to thee as I had done to Godwin my lord. 
And I have not till now claimed thy promise ; for I allowed 
thy country, thy king, and thy fame to have claims more 
strong than a mother. How I tarry no more; now no 
more will I be amused and deceived. Thine hours are 
thine own — free thy coming and thy going. Harold, I 


16 


HAROLD. 


claim thine oath. Harold, I touch thy right hand. Ha, 
rold, I remind thee of thy troth and thy plight, to cross 
the seas thyself, and restore the child to tVe mother.” 

“Oh, rise, rise!” exclaimed Harold, deeply moved. 
“ Patient hast thou been, O my mother, and now I will 
linger no more, nor hearken to other voice than your 
own. I will seek the king this day, and ask his leave to 
cross the sea to Duke William. ” 

Then Githa rose, and fell on the earl’s breast weeping. 


CHAPTER IY. 

It so chanced, while this interview took place between 
Githa and the earl, that Gurth, hawking in the wood- 
lands round Hilda’s house, turned aside to visit his 
Danish kinswoman. The prophetess was absent, but he 
was told that Edith was within ; and Gurth, about to be 
united to a maiden who had long won his noble affec- 
tions, cherished a brother’s love for his brother’s fair 
betrothed. He entered the gyncecium, and there still, as 
when we were first made present in that chamber, sate 
the maids, employed on a work more brilliant to the eye, 
and more pleasing to the labor, than that which had then 
tasked their active hands. They were broidering into a 
tissue of the purest gold the effigy of a fighting warrior, 
designed by Hilda for the banner of Earl Harold ; and, 
removed from the awe of their mistress, as they worked, 


HAROLD. 


n 

their tongues sang gaily, and it was in the midst of song 
and laughter that the fair young Saxon lord entered the 
chamber. The babble and the mirth ceased at his en- 
trance ; each voice was stilled, each eye cast down de- 
murely. Edith was not amongst them, and, in answer to 
his inquiry, the eldest of the maidens pointed towards 
the peristyle without the house. 

The winning and kindly thegn paused a few moments, 
to admire the tissue and commend the work, and then 
sought the peristyle. 

Near the water-spring that gushed free and bright 
through the Roman fountain, he found Edith, seated in 
an attitude of deep thought and gloomy dejection. She 
started as he approached, and, springing forward to meet 
him, exclaimed: — 

44 0 Gurth, Heaven hath sent .thee to me, I know well, 
though I cannot explain to thee why, for I cannot ex- 
plain it to myself; but know I do, by the mysterious 
bodements of my own soul, that some great danger is at 
this moment encircling thy brother Harold. Go to him, 
I pray, I implore thee, forthwith ; and let thy clear sense 
and warm heart be by his side.” 

“ I will go instantly,” said Gurth, startled. “ But do 
not suffer, I adjure thee, sweet kinswoman, the supersti- 
tion that wraps this place, as a mist wraps a marsh, to 
infer : thy pure spirit. In my early youth I submitted to 
the influence of Hilda ; I became man, and outgrew it. 
Much, secretly, has it grieved me of late, to see that our 
kinswoman’s Danish lore has brought even the strong 
2 * 2a 


18 


HAROLD. 


heart cf Harold under its spell ; and where once he only 
spoke of duty , I now hear him speak of fate.” 

“Alas ! alas 1 ” answered Edith, wringing her hands: 
“ when the bird hides its head in the brake, doth it shut 
out the track of the hound ? Can we baffle fate by re- 
fusing to heed its approaches ? But we waste precious 
moments. Go, Gurth, dear Gurth ! Heavier and darker, 
while we speak, gathers the cloud on my heart.” 

Gurth said no more, but hastened to remount his steed ; 
and Edith remained alone by the Roman fountain, mo- 
tionless and sad, as if the Nymph of the old Religion 
stood there to see the lessening stream well away from 
the shattered stone, and know that the life of the nymph 
was measured by the ebb of the stream. 

Gurth arrived in London just as Harold was taking 
boat for the palace of Westminster, to seek the king; 
and after interchanging a hurried embrace with his mo- 
ther, he accompanied Harold to the palace, and learned 
his errand by the way. While Harold spoke, he did not 
foresee any danger to be incurred by a friendly visit to 
the Norman court ; and the interval that elapsed between 
Harold’s communication and their entrance into the 
king’s chamber, allowed no time for mature and careful 
reflection. 

Edward, on wnom years and infirmity had increased 
of late with rapid ravage, heard Harold’s request with a 
grave and deep attention, which he seldom vouchsafed to 
earthly affairs. And he remained long silent after his 
brother-in-law had finished ; so long silent, that the earl, 


HAROLD. 


li) 

at first, deemed that he was absorbed in one of those 
mystic and abstracted reveries, in which, more and more 
as he grew nearer to the borders of the World Unseen, 
Edward so strangely indulged. But, looking more close, 
both he and Gurth were struck by the evident dismay on 
the king’s face, while the collected light of Edward’s cold 
eye showed that his mind was awake to the human world. 
In truth, it is probable that Edward, at that moment, 
v as recalling rash hints, if not promises, to bis rapacious 
cousin of Normandy, made during his exile. And sensi- 
ble of his own declining health, and the tender years of 
the young Edgar, he might be musing over the terrible 
pretender to the English throne, whose claims his earlier 
indiscretion might seem to sanction. Whatever his 
thoughts, they were dark and sinister, as at length he 
said, slowly — 

“Is thine oath indeed given to thy mother, and doth 
she keep thee to it ? ” 

“ Both, 0 king,” answered Harold, briefly. 

“Then I can gainsay thee not. And thou, Harold, 
art a man of this living world ; thou playest here the 
part of a centurion ; thou sayest, ‘ Come,’ and men come 
— ‘ Go,’ and men move at thy will. Therefore thou 
mayest well judge for thyself. I gainsay thee not, nor 
interfere between man and his vow. But think not,” 
continued the king, in a more solemn voice, and with 
increasing emotion, “think not that I will charge my 
soul that I counselled or encouraged this errand. Yea, 


20 


HAROLT). 


I foresee that thy journey will lead but to great evil to 
England, and sore grief or dire loss to thee.” * 

“ How so, dear lord and king ? ” said Harold, startled 
by Edward’s unwonted earnestness, though deeming it 
but one of the visionary chimeras habitual to the saint. 
“ How so ? William thy cousin hath ever borne the 
name of one fair to friend, though fierce to foe. And 
foul indeed his dishonor, if he could meditate harm to a 
man trusting his faith, and sheltered by his own roof- 
tree.” 

“ Harold, Harold,” said Edward, impatiently, “I know 
William of old. Nor is he so simple of mind, that he 
will cede aught for thy pleasure, or even to my will, unless 
it bring some gain to himself. f I say no more. — Thou 
art cautioned, and I leave the rest to Heaven.” 

It is the misfortune of men little famous for worldly 
lore, that on those few occasions when, in that sagacity 
caused by their very freedom from the strife and passion 
of those around, they seem almost prophetically inspired 
— it is their misfortune to lack the power of conveying 
to others their own convictions ; they may divine, but 
they cannot reason ; and Harold could detect nothing to 
deter his purpose, in a vague fear, based on no other 
argument than as vague a perception of the duke’s 
general character. But Gurth, listening less to his reason 
than his devoted love for his brother, took alarm, and 
said, after a pause : 

* Bromton Ghron . : Knyghton, Walsingham, Hoveden, &c. 

I Bromton, Knyghton, &c. 


HAROLD. 


21 


“ Thinkest thou, good my king, that the same danger 
were incurred if Gurth, instead of Harold, crossed the 
seas to demand the hostages ? ” 

“ No,” said Edward, eagerly, “ and so would I counsel. 
William would not have the same objects to gain in 
practising his worldly guile upon thee. “ No ; methinks 
that were the prudent course.” 

“And the ignoble one for Harold,” said the elder 
brother, almost indignantly. “ Howbeit, I thank thee 
gratefully, dear king, for thy affectionate heed and care ; 
and so the saints guard thee ! ” 

On leaving the king, a warm discussion between the 
brothers took place ; but Gurth’s arguments were stronger 
than those of Harold, and the earl was driven to rest his 
persistence on his own special pledge to Githa. As soon, 
however, as they had gained their home, that plea was 
taken from him ; for the moment Gurth related to his 
mother Edward’s fears and cautions, she, ever mindful 
of Godwin’s preference for the earl, and his last com- 
mands to her, hastened to release Harold from his 
pledge ; and to implore him at least to suffer Gurth to 
be his substitute to the Norman court. “Listen dis- 
passionately,” said Gurth; “rely upon it that Edward 
has reasons for his fears, more rational than those he has 
given to us He knows William from his youth upward, 
and hath loved him too well to hint doubts of his good 
faith without just foundation. Are there no reasons why 
danger from William should be special against thyself 9 
While the Normans abounded in the court, there were 


H AROLD. 


rumors that the duke had some designs on England, 
which Edward’s preference seemed to sanction : such 
designs now, in the altered state of England, were absurd 
- — too frantic for a prince of William’s reputed wisdom 
to entertain ; yet, he may not unnaturally seek to regain 
the former Norman influence in these realms. He knows 
that in you he receives the most powerful man in 
England ; that, your detention alone would convulse the 
country from one end of it to the other ; and enable him, 
perhaps, to extort from Edward some measures dishonor- 
able to us all ; but against me, he can harbor no ill 
design — my detention would avail him nothing. And, 
in truth, if Harold be safe in England, Gurth must be 
safe in Rouen. Thy presence here at the head of our 
armies guarantees me from wrong. But reverse the case, 
and with Gurth in England, is Harold safe in Rouen? 
I, but a simple soldier, and homely lord, with slight in- 
fluence over Edward, no command in the country, and 
little practised of speech in the stormy Witan — I am 
just so great that William dare not harm me, but not so 
great that he should even wish to harm me.” 

“ He detains our kinsmen, why not thee ? ” said Harold. 

“ Because with our kinsmen he has at least the pretext 
that they were pledged as hostages ; because I go simply 
as guest and envoy. No, to me danger cannot come : be 
ruled, dear Harold.” 

“Be ruled, O ray son,” cried Githa, clasping the earl’s 
knees, “ and do not let me dread, in the depth of the 


harolt. 23 

night, to see the shade of Godwin, and hear his voice 
say, ‘Woman, where is Harold ?” 

It was impossible for the earl’s strong understanding 
to resist the arguments addressed to it ; and, to say truth, 
he had been more disturbed than he liked to confess, by 
Edward’s sinister forewarnings ; yet, on the other hand, 
there were reasons against his acquiescence in Gurth’s 
proposal. The primary, and, to do him justice, the 
strongest, was in his native courage and his generous 
pride. Should he, for the first time in his life, shrink 
from a peril in the discharge of his duty — a peril, too, so 
uncertain and vague ? Should he suffer Gurth to fulfil 
the pledge he himself had taken ? And granting even 
that Gurth were safe from whatever danger he individu- 
ally might incur, did it become him to accept the proxy ? 
Would Gurth’s voice, too, be as potent as his own in 
effecting the return of the hostages ? 

The next reasons that swayed him were those he could 
not avow. In clearing his way to the English throne, it 
would be of no mean importance to secure the friendship 
of the Norman duke, and the Norman acquiescence in his 
pretensions ; it would be of infinite service to remove 
those prepossessions against his House which were still 
rife with the Normans, who retained a bitter remembrance 
of their countrymen decimated,* it was said, with the 

* The word “decimated” is the one generally applied by the 
historians to the massacre in question ; and it is therefore retained 
here; but it is not correctly applied ; for that butchery was perpe- 
trated, not upon one out of ten, but nine out of ten. 


24 


HAROLD. 


concurrence if not at the order of Godwin, when they ac 
companied the ill-fated Alfred to the English shore, and 
who were yet sore with their old expulsion from the 
English court at the return of his father and himself. 

Though it could not enter into his head that William, 
possessing no party in England, could himself aspire to 
the English crown, yet at Edward’s death, there might be 
pretenders whom the Norman arms could find ready 
excuse to sanction. There was the boy Atheling, on the 
one side; there was the valiant Norwegian King Har- 
drada on the other, who might revive the claims of his 
predecessor Magnus as heir to the rights of Canute. So 
near and so formidable a neighbor as the count of the 
Normans, every object of policy led him to propitiate : 
and Gurth, with his unbending hate of all that was 
Norman, was not, at least, the most politic envoy he 
could select for that end. Add to this, that despite their 
present reconciliation, Harold could never long count 
upon amity with Tostig ; and Tostig’s connection with 
William, through their marriages into the House of 
Baldwin, was full of danger to a new throne, to which 
Tostig would probably be the most turbulent subject ; 
the influence of this connection how desirable to counter- 
act!* 


* The above reasons for Harold’s memorable expedition are 
sketched at this length, because they suggest the most probable 
motives which induced it, and furnish, in no rash and inconsiderate 
policy, that key to his visit, which is not to be found in chronicler 
or historian 


HAROLD. 


25 


Nor eould Harold, who, as patriot and statesman, felt 
deeply the necessity of reform and regeneration in the 
decayed edifice of the English monarchy, willingly lose 
an occasion to witness all that William had done to raise 
so high in renown and civilization, in martial fame and 
commercial prosperity, that petty duchy, which he had 
placed on a level with the kingdom of the Teuton and the 
Frank. Lastly, the Normans were the special darlings 
of the Roman church. William had obtained the dis- 
pensation to his own marriage with Matilda; and might 
not the Norman influence, duly conciliated, back the 
prayer which Harold trusted one day to address to the 
pontiff, and secure to him the hallowed blessing, without 
which ambition lost its charm, and even a throne its 
splendor ? 

All these considerations, therefore, urged the earl to 
persist in his original purpose ; but a warning voice in 
his heart, more powerful than all, sided with the prayer 
of Githa, and the arguments of Gurth. In this state of 
irresolution, Gurth said seasonably, — 

“Bethink thee, Harold, if menaced but with peril to 
thyself, thou wouldst have a brave man’s right to resist 
us ; but it was of ‘ great evil to England ’ that Edward 
spoke, and thy reflection must tell thee, that in this 
crisis of our country, danger to thee is evil to England 
— evil to England thou hast no right to incur.” 

“ Hear mother, and generous Gurth,” said Harold, 
then joining the two in one embrace, “ye have well-nigh 
conquered. Give me but two days to ponder well, and 
II.— 3 


26 


HAROLD. 


be assured that I will not decide from the rash prompt- 
ings of an ill-considered judgment.” 

Farther than this they could not then move the earl ; 
but Gurth was pleased shortly afterwards to see him de- 
part to Edith, whose fears, from whatever source they 
sprang, would, he was certain, come in aid of his own 
pleadings. 

But as the earl rode alone towards the once stately 
home of the perished Roman, and entered at twilight the 
darkening forest-land, his thoughts were less on Edith 
than on the Yala, with whom his ambition had more and 
more connected his soul. Perplexed by his doubts, and 
left dim in the waning lights of human reason, never 
more involuntarily did he fly to some guide to interpret 
the future, and decide his path. 

As if fate itself responded to the cry of his heart, he 
suddenly came in sight of Hilda herself, gathering leaves 
from elm and ash amidst the woodland. 

He sprang from his horse and approached her. 

“Hilda,” said he, in a low but firm voice, “thou hast 
often told me that the dead can advise the living. Raise 
thou the Sein-laeca of the hero of old — raise the Ghost, 
which mine eye, or my fancy, beheld before, vast and dim 
by the silent bautastein, and I will stand by thy side. 
Fain would I know if thou hast deceived me and thyself ; 
or if, in truth, to man’s guidance Heaven doth vouchsafe 
saga and rede from those who have passed into the secret 
shores of eternity.” 

“The dead,” answered Hilda, “will not reveal them* 


HAROLD. 


21 


selves to eyes uninitiate, save at their own will, uncom 
pelled by charm and rune. To me their forms can appear 
distinct through the airy flame ; to me, duly prepared by 
spells that purge the eye of the spirit, and loosen the 
walls of the flesh. I cannot say that what I see in the 
trance and the travail of my soul, thou also wilt behold ; 
for even when the vision hath passed from my sight, and 
the voice from my ear, only memories, confused aud dim, 
of what I saw and heard, remain to guide the waking 
and common life. But thou shalt stand by my side while 
I invoke the phantom, and hear and interpret the words 
which rush from my lips, and the runes that take meaning 
from the sparks of the charmed fire. I knew ere thou 
earnest, by the darkness and trouble of Edith’s soul, that 
some shade from the ash-tree of life had fallen upon 
thine.” 

Then Harold related what had passed, and placed 
before Hilda the doubts that beset him. 

The prophetess listened with earnest attention ; but 
her mind, when not under its most mystic influences, 
being strongly biassed by its natural courage and ambi- 
tion, she saw at a glance all the advantages towards 
securing the throne predestined to Harold, which might 
be effected by his visit to the Norman court, and she held 
in too great disdain both the worldly sense and the mystic 
reveries of the monkish king (for the believer in Odin 
was naturally incredulous of the visitation- of the Christian 
saints), to attach much weight to his dreary predictions. 

The short reply she made was therefore not calculated 


28 


HAROLD. 


to deter Harold from the expedition in dispute ; but she 
deferred till the following* night, and to wisdom more 
dread than her own, the counsels that should sway his 
decision. 

With a strange satisfaction at the thought that he 
should, at least, test personally the reality of those as- 
sumptions of preternatural power which had of late 
colored his resolves and oppressed his heart, Harold then 
took leave of the Tala, who returned mechanically to her 
employment ; and, leading his horse by the rein, slowly 
continued his musing way towards the green knoll and 
its heathen ruins. But ere he gained the hillock, and 
while his thoughtful eyes were bent on the ground, he 
felt his arm seized tenderly — turned — and beheld Edith’s 
face full of unutterable and anxious love. 

With that love, indeed, there was blended so much 
wistfulness, so much fear, that Harold exclaimed, 

“ Soul of my soul, what hath chanced ? what affects 
thee thus ? ” 

“ Hath no danger befallen thee ?” asked Edith, falter- 
ingly, and gazing on his face with wistful, searching eyes. 

“ Danger 1 none, sweet trembler,” answered the earl, 
evasively. 

Edith dropped her eager looks, and clinging to his 
arm, drew him on silently into the forest land. She paused 
at last, where the old fantastic trees shut out the view of 
the ancient ruins-; and when, looking round, she saw not 
those grey gigantic shafts which mortal hand seemed 
never to have piled together, she breathed more freely. 


HAROLD. 


“ Speak to me,” then said Harold, bending his face to 
ners ; “ why this silence ? ” 

“Ah, Harold 1 ” answered his betrothed, “thou knowest 
that ever jince we have loved one another, my existence 
hath been but a shadow of thine ; by some weird and 
strange mystery, which Hilda would explain by the stars 
or the fates, that have made me a part of thee, I know 
by the lightness or gloom of my own spirit when good 
or ill shall befall thee. How often, in thine absence, hath 
a joy suddenly broke upon me ! and I felt by that joy, as 
by the smile of a good angel, that thou hadst passed safe 
through some peril, or triumphed over some foe I And 
now thou askest me why I am so sad ; — I can only an- 
swer thee by saying, that the sadness is cast upon me by 
some thunder-gloom on thine own destiny.” 

Harold had sought Edith to speak of his meditated 
journey, but seeing her dejection he did not dare ; so he 
drew her to his breast, and chid her soothingly for her 
vain apprehensions. But Edith would not be comforted ; 
there seemed something weighing on her mind and strug- 
gling to her lips, not accounted for merely by sympathetic 
forebodings ; and at length, as he pressed her to tell all, 
she gathered courage and spoke, — 

“ Do not mock me,” she said, “but what secret, whe- 
ther of vain folly or of meaning fate, should I hold from 
thee ? AL this day I struggled in vain against the heavi- 
ness of my forebodings. How I hailed the sight of Gurth 
thy brother ! I besought him to seek thee — thou hast 
seen him.” 

3 * 


30 


HAROLD. 


“ i have ! ” said Harold. “ But thou wert about to 
tell me of something more than this dejection.” 

“ Well,” resumed Edith, “ after Gurth left me, my feet 
sought involuntarily the hill on which we have met so 
often. I sate down near the old tomb, a strange weari- 
ness crept on my eyes, and a sleep that seemed not wholly 
sleep fell over me. I struggled against it, as if conscious 
of some coming terror ; and as I struggled, and ere I 
slept, Harold, — yes, ere I slept, — I saw distinctly a pale 
and glimmering figure rise from the Saxon’s grave. I 
saw — I see it still ! Oh, that livid front, those glassy 
eyes ! ” 

“ The figure of a warrior ? ” said Harold, startled. 

“ Of a warrior, armed as in the ancient days, armed 
like the warrior that Hilda’s maids are working for thy 
banner. I saw it ; and in one hand it held a spear, and 
in the other a crown.” 

“A crown ! — Say on, say oil.” 

“ I saw no more ; sleep, in spite of myself, fell on me, 
a sleep full of confused and painful — rapid and shapeless 
images, till at last this dream rose clear. I beheld a 
bright and starry shape, that seemed as a spirit, yet wore 
thine aspect, standing on a rock ; and an angry torrent 
rolled between the rock and the dry, safe land. The 
waves began to invade the rock, and the spirit unfurled 
its wings as to flee. And then foul things climbed up 
from the slime of the rock, and descended from the mists 
of the troubled skies, and they coiled round the wings 
and clogged them. 


HAROLD. 


81 


“ Then a voice cried in my ear, — * Seest thou not on 
the perilous rock the Soul of Harold the Brave ? — seest 
thou not that the waters engulf it, if the wings fail to 
flee ? Up, Truth, whose strength is in purity, whose 
image is woman, and aid the soul of the brave ! ' I 
sought to spring to thy side ; but I was powerless, and, 
behold, close beside me, through my sleep and through a 
veil, appeared the shafts of the ruined temple in which I 
lay reclined. And, methought, I saw Hilda sitting alone 
by the Saxorns grave, and pouring from a crystal vessel 
black drops into a human heart which she held in her 
hands : and out of that heart grew a child, and out of 
that child a youth, with dark mournful brow. And the 
youth stood by thy side and whispered to thee : and 
from his lips there came a reeking smoke, and in that 
smoke as in a blight the wings withered up. And I 
heard the Voice say, — 1 Hilda, it is thou that hast de- 
stroyed the good angel, and reared from the poisoned 
heart the loathsome tempter V And I cried aloud, but 
it was too late ; the waves swept over thee, and above 
the waves there floated an iron helmet, and on the helmet 
was a golden crown — the crown I had seen in the hand 
of the spectre ! ” 

“But this is no evil dream, ray Edith,” said Harold 
gaily. 

Edith, unheeding him, continued, — 

“ I started from my sleep. The sun was still high — 
the air lulled and windless. Then through the shafts 
and down the hill there glided in that clear waking day- 


32 


HAROLD. 


light, a grisly shape like that which I have heard our 
maidens say the witch-hags, sometimes seen in the forest, 
assume ; yet in truth, it seemed neither of man nor wo- 
man. It turned its face once towards me, and on that 
hideous face were the glee and hate of a triumphant 
fiend. Oh, Harold, what should all this portend ? ” 

“ Hast thou not asked thy kinswoman, the diviner of 
dreams ? ” 

“ I asked Hilda, and she, like thee, only murmured 
1 The Saxon crown I ’ But if there be faith in those airy 
children of the night, surely, 0 adored one, the vision 
forebodes danger, not to life, but to soul ; and the w'orda 
I heard seemed to say that thy wings were thy valor, and 
the Fylgia thou hadst lost was, — no, that were impossi- 
ble— 3 ” 

“ That my Fylgia was Truth, which losing, I were in- 
deed lost to thee. Thou dost well,” said Harold loftily, 
“to hold that among the lies of the fancy. All else may, 
perchance, desert me, but never mine own free soul. 
Self-reliant hath Hilda called me in mine earlier days, 
and — wherever fate casts me, — in my truth, and my love, 
and my dauntless heart, I dare both man and the fiend.” 

Edith gazed a moment in devout admiration on the 
mien of her hero-lover, then she drew close and closer to 
his breast, consoled and believing. 


HAROLD. 


83 


CHAPTER V. 

With all her persuasion of her own powers in pene- 
trating the future, we have seen that Hilda had never 
consulted her oracles on the fate of Harold, without a 
dark and awful sense of the ambiguity of their responses. 
That fate, involving the mightiest interests of a great 
race, and connected with events operating on the farthest 
times and the remotest lands, lost itself to her prophetic 
ken amidst omens the most, contradictory, shadows and 
lights the most conflicting, meshes the most entangled. 
Her human heart, devoutly attached to the earl through 
her love for Edith, — her pride obstinately bent on se- 
curing to the last daughter of her princely race that 
throne, which all her vaticinations, even when most 
gloomy, assured her was destined to the man with whom 
Edith’s doom was interwoven, combined to induce her to 
the most favorable interpretation of all that seemed 
minister and doubtful. But according to the tenets of 
lhat peculiar form of magic cultivated by Hilda, the 
comprehension became obscured by whatever partook of 
human sympathy. It was a magic wholly distinct from 
the malignant witchcraft more popularly known to us, 
and which was equally common to the Germanic and 
Scandinavian heathens. 


3* 


2b 


34 


HAROLD. 


The magic of Hilda was rather akin to the old Cim- 
brian Alirones, or sacred prophetesses ; and, as with 
them, it demanded the priestess , — that is, the person 
without human ties or emotions, a spirit clear as a mirror, 
upon which the great images of destiny might be cast 
untroubled. 

However the natural gifts and native character of 
Hilda might be perverted by the visionary and delusive 
studies habitual to her, there was in her very infirmities a 
grandeur, not without its pathos. In this position which 
she had assumed between the earth and the heaven, she 
stood so solitary and in such chilling air, — all the doubts 
that beset her lonely and daring soul came in such 
gigantic forms of terror and menace ! — On the verge of 
the mighty Heathenesse sinking fast into the night of 
ages, she towered amidst the shades, a shade herself; 
and round her gathered the last demons of the Dire Be- 
lief, defying the march of their luminous foe, and con- 
centering round their mortal priestess, the wrecks of their 
horrent empire over a world redeemed. 

All the night that succeeded her last brief conference 
with Harold, the Yala wandered through the wild forest 
land, seeking haunts or employed in collecting herbs, 
hallowed to her dubious yet solemn lore ; and the last 
stars were receding into the cold grey skies, when, re- 
turning homeward, she beheld within the circle of the 
Druid temple a motionless object, stretched on the 
ground near the Teuton’s grave ; she approached, and 
perceived what seemed a corpse, it was so still and stiff 


HAROLD. 


85 


in its repose, and the face upturned to the stars was so 
haggard and death-like ; — a face horrible to behold ; the 
evidence of extreme age was written on the shrivelled 
livid skin and the deep furrows, but the expression re- 
tained that intense malignity which belongs to a power 
of life that extreme age rarely knows. The garb, which 
was that of a remote fashion, was foul and ragged, and 
neither by the garb, nor by the face, was it easy to guess 
what was the sex of this seeming corpse. But by a 
strange and peculiar odor that rose from the form, and a 
certain glistening on the face, and the lean folded hands, 
Hilda knew that the creature was one of those witches, 
esteemed of all the most deadly and abhorred, who, by 
the application of certain ointments, were supposed to 
possess the art of separating soul from body, and, leaving 
the last as dead, to dismiss the first to the dismal orgies 
of the Sabbat. It was a frequent custom to select for 
the place of such trances, heathen temples ami ancient 
graves. And Hilda seated herself beside the witch to 
await the waking. The cock crowed thrice, heavy mists 
began to arise from the glades, covering the gnarled 
roots of the forest trees, when the dread face on which 
Hilda calmly gazed, showed symptoms of returning life ! 
a strong convulsion shook the vague indefinite form under 
its huddled garments, the eyes opened, closed, — opened 
again ; and what had a few moments before seemed a 
dead ihing, sate up and looked round. 

“ Wicea,” said the Danish prophetess, with an accent 
between contempt and curiosity, “for what mischief to 


36 HAROLD. 

beast or man hast thou followed the noiseless path of the 
Dreams through the airs of Night 'i ” 

The creature gazed hard upon the questioner, from its 
bleared but fiery eyes, and replied slowly, “ Hail, Hilda, 
the Morthwyrtha ! why art thou not of us ; why comest 
thou not to our revels ? Gay sport have we had to-night 
with Faul and Zabulus ; * but gayer far shall our sport 
be in the wassail hall of Senlac, when thy grand-child 
shall come in the torchlight to the bridal bed of her lord. 
A buxom bride is Edith the Fair, and fair looked her 
face in her sleep on yester noon, when I sate by her side, 
and breathed on her brow, and murmured the verse that 
blackens the dream ; but fairer still shall she look in her 
sleep by her lord. Ha ! ha I Ho ! we shall be there, 
with Zabulus and Faul ; we shall be there 1 ” 

“ How ! ” said Hilda, thrilled to learn that the secret 
ambition she cherished was known to this loathed sister 
in the art. “ How dost thou pretend to that mystery of 
the future, which is dim and clouded even to me ? Canst 
thou tell when and where the daughter of the Norse 
kings shall sleep on the breast of her lord ? ” 

A sound that partook of laughter, but was so unearthly 
in its malignant glee that it seemed not to come from a 
human lip, answered the Yala; and as the laugh died 
the witch rose, and said, 

“ Go and question thy dead, O Morthwyrtha ! Thou 

* Faul was an evil spirit much dreaded by the Saxons. Zabulus 
and Diabolus (the Devil) seem to have been the same 


HAROLD. 


37 


deemest thyself' wiser than we are ; we wretched hags, 
whom the ceorl seeks when his herd has the murrain, or 
the girl when her false love forsakes her ; we, who have 
no dwelling known to man, but are found at need in the 
wold or the cave, or the side of dull slimy streams where 
the murderess-mother hath drowned her babe. Askest 
thou, 0 Hilda, the rich and the learned, askest thou 
counsel and lore from the daughter of Faul ? ” 

“ No,” answered the Yala haughtily, “not to such as 
thou, do the great Nornas unfold the future. What 
knowest thou of the runes of old, whispered by the trunk- 
less skull to the mighty Odin ? runes that control the 
elements, and conjure up the Shining Shadows of the 
grave. Not with thee will the stars confer; and thy 
dreams are foul with revelries obscene, not solemn and 
haunted with the bodements of things to come 1 Only I 
marvelled, while I beheld thee on the Saxon’s grave, 
what joy such as thou can find in that life above life, 
which draws upward the soul of the true Yala.” 

“ The joy,” replied the Witch, “ the joy which come? 
from wisdom and power, higher than you ever won with 
your spells from the rune or the star. Wrath gives the 
venom to the slaver of the dog, and death to the curse 
of the Witch. When wilt thou be as wise as the hag 
thou despisest ? When will all the clouds that beset thee 
roll away from thy ken ? When thy hopes are all crushed, 
when thy passions lie dead, when thy pride is abased, 
when thou art but a wreck, like the shafts of this temple, 
through which the star-light can shine. Then only, thy 
II.— 4 


38 


HAROLD. 


soul will see clearly the sense of the runes, and then, 
thou and I will meet on the verge of the Black Shore- 
less Sea ! ” 

So, despite all her haughtiness and disdain, did these 
words startle the lofty Prophetess, that she remained 
gazing into space long after that fearful apparition had 
vanished, and up from the grass, which those obscene 
steps had profaned, sprang the lark carolling. 

But ere the sun had dispelled the dews on the forest 
sward, Hilda had recovered her wonted calm, and, locked 
within her own secret chamber, prepared the seid and the 
runes for the invocation of the dead. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Resolving, should the auguries consulted permit him 
to depart, to entrust Gurth with the charge of informing 
Edith, Harold parted from his betrothed, without hint of 
his suspended designs ; and he passed the day in making 
all preparations for his absence and his journey, promis- 
ing Gurth to give his final answer on the morrow, — when 
either himself or his brother should depart for Rouen ; 
but more and more impressed with the arguments of 
Gurth, and his own sober reason, and somewhat perhaps 
influenced by the forebodings of Edith (for that mind, 
once so constitutionally firm, had become tremulously 
alive to such airy influences), he had almost predeter- 


HAROLD. 


39 


milled to assent to his brother’s prayer, when he departed 
to keep his dismal appointment with the Morthwyrtha. 
The night was dim, but not dark ; no moon shone, but 
the stars, wan though frequent, gleamed pale, as from the 
farthest deeps of the heaven ; clouds grey and fleecy 
rolled slowly across the welkin, veiling and disclosing, by 
turns, the melancholy orbs. 

The Morthwyrtha, in her dark dress, stood within the 
circle of stones. She had already kindled a fire at the 
foot of the bautastein, and its glare shone redly on the 
grey shafts ; playing through their forlorn gaps upon the 
sward. By her side was a vessel, seemingly of pure 
water, filled from the old Roman fountain, and its clear 
surface flashed blood-red in the beams. Behind them, in 
a circle round both fire and water, were fragments of 
bark, cut in a peculiar form, like the head of an arrow, 
and inscribed with the mystic letters ; nine were the frag- 
ments, and on each fragment were graved the runes. In 
her right hand the Morthwyrtha held her scid staff ; her 
feet were bare, and her loins girt by the Hnnnish belt, 
inscribed with mystic letters ; from the belt hung a pouch 
or gipsire of bear-skin, with plates of silver. Her face, 
as Harold entered the circle, had lost its usual calm — it 
was wild and troubled. 

She seemed unconscious of Harold’s presence, and her 
eye, fixed and rigid, was as that of one in a trance. 
Slowly, as if constrained by some power not her own, 
she began to move round the ring with a measured pace, 
and at last her voice broke low, hollow, and internal, into 


40 


HAROLD. 


a ragged chaunt, which may be thus imperfectly trans- 
lated : — 


“By the Urdar-foUnt dwelling, 

Day by day from the rill, 

The Nornas besprinkle 
The ash Ygg-drassill.* 

The hart bites the buds, 

And the snake gnaws the root, 

But the eagle all-seeing 
Keeps watch on the fruit. 

These drops on thy tomb 
From the fountain I pour ; 

With the rune I invoke thee, 

With flame I restore. 

Dread Father of men 

In the land of thy grave, 

Give voice to the Yala, 

And light to the Brave.” 

As she thus chanted, the Morthwyrtha now sprinkled 
the drops from the vessel over the bautastein, — now one 
by one cast the fragments of bark scrawled with runes on 
the fire. Then, whether or not some glutinous or other 
chemical material had been mingled in the water, a pale 
gleam broke from the grave-stone thus besprinkled, and 
the whole tomb glistened in the light of the leaping fire. 
From this light a mist of thin smoke gradually rose, and 
took, though vaguely, the outline of a vast human form ; 
but so indefinite was the outline to Harold’s eye, that 
gazing on it steadily, and stilling with strong effort his 

* Ygg-drassill , the mystic Ash-tree of Life, or symbol of the 
earth, watered by the Fates. 


HAROLD. 


4 1 

loud heart, he knew not whether it was a phantom or a 
vapor that he beheld. 

The Yala paused, leaning on her staff, and gazing in 
awe on the glowing stone, while the earl, with his arms 
folded on his broad breast, stood hushed and motionless. 
The sorceress recommenced — 

44 Mighty Dead, I revere thee, 

Dim-shaped from the cloud, 

With the light of thy deeds 
For the web of thy shroud; 

“ As Odin consulted 

Mimir’s skull hollow-eyed,* 

Odin’s heir comes to seek 
In the Phantom a guide.” 

As the Morthwyrtha ceased, the fire crackled loud, and 
from it's flame flew one of the fragments of bark to the 
feet of the sorceress : — the runic letters all indented with 
sparks. 

The sorceress uttered a loud cry, which, despite his 
courage and his natural strong sense, thrilled through the 
earl’s heart to his marrow and bones, so appalling was it 
with wrath and terror ; and while she gazed aghast on 
the blazing letters, she burst forth — 

14 No warrior art thou, 

And no child of the tomb ; 

I know thee, and shudder. 

Great Asa of Doom. 


* Mimir, the most celebrated of the giants. The Vaner, with 
whom he was left as a hostage, cut off his head. Odin embalmed 
it by his seid , or magic art. pronounced over it mystic runes, and, 
ever after, consulted it on critical occasions. 

4 * 


42 


HAROLD. 


“Thou constrainest my lips, 

And thou crushest my spell, 

Bright Son of the Giant — 

Dark Father of Hell!”* * 

The whole form of the Morthwyrtha then became con- 
vulsed and agitated, as if with the tempest of frenzy ; 
the foam gathered to her lips, and her voice rang forth 
like « shriek — 

“ In the Iron Wood rages 
The Weaver of Harm, 

The giant Blood-drinker 
Hag-born Managarm. f 

“A keel nears the shoal; 

From the slime and the mud 
Crawl the newt and the adder, 

The spawn of the flood. 

“ Thou stand l st on the rock 

Where the dreamer beheld thee. 

0 soul, spread thy wings, 

Ere the glamour hath spell’d thee. 


* Asa-Lok or Loke — (distinct from Utgard-Lok, the demon ot 

*he Infernal Regions) — descended from the Giants, but received 
among the celestial deities; a treacherous and malignant Power 
fond of assuming disguises and plotting evil; — corresponding in 
his attributes with our “Lucifer.” — One of his progeny was Ilela, 
the queen of Hell. 

■f- “A hag dwells in a wood called Jamvid, the Iron Wood, the 
mother of many gigantie sons, shaped like wolves ; there is one 
of a race more fearful than all, named ‘Managarm.’ He will be 
filled with the blood of men who draw near their end, and will 
Bwallow up the moon and stain the heavens and the earth with 
blood.” — From the Prose Edda. In the Scandinavian poetry, 
Managarm is sometimes the symbol of war , and the “ Iron Wood” 
a metaphor for spears. 


HAROLD. 


43 


“Oh, dread is the tempter, 

And strong the control ; 

But conquer’d the tempter, 

If firm be the soul I” 

The Yala paused ; and though it was evident that in 
her frenzy she was still unconscious of Harold’s presence, 
and seemed but to be the compelled and passive voice to 
some Power, real or imaginary, beyond her own exist- 
ence, the proud man approached, and said — 

“ Pirm shall be my soul ; nor of the dangers which be- 
set it would I ask the dead or the living. If plain 
answers to mortal sense can come from these airy shadows 
or these mystic charms, reply, 0 interpreter of fate ; reply 
but to the questions I demand. If I go to the court of 
the Norman, shall I return unscathed?” 

The Yala stood rigid as a shape of stone while Harold 
thus spoke, and her voice came so low and strange as if 
forced from her scarce-moving lips — 

“Thou shalt return unscathed.” 

“ Shall the hostages of Godwin, my father, be re- 
leased ?” 

“The hostages of Godwin shall be released,” answered 
the same voice ; “the hostage of Harold be retained.” 

“ Wherefore hostage from me ? ” 

“In pledge of alliance with the Norman.” 

“Ha! then the Norman and Harold shall plight 
friendship and troth ?” 

“Yes;” answered the Yala; but this time a visible 
shudder passed over her rigid form. 


44 


HAROLD. 


“Two questions more, and I have done. The Norman 
priests have the ear of the Roman pontiff. Shall my 
league with William the Norman avail to win me my 
bride ? ” 

“ It will win thee the bride thou wouldst never have 
wedded but for thy league with William the Norman. 
Peace with thy questions, peace ! ” continued the voice, 
trembling as with some fearful struggle ; “ for it is the 
Demon that forces my words, and they wither my soul to 
speak them.” 

“But one question more remains; shall I live to wear 
the crown of England ; and if so, when shall I be a king ? ” 

At these words the face of the prophetess kindled, the 
fire suddenly leapt up higher and brighter ; again, vivid 
sparks lighted the runes on the fragments of bark that 
were shot from the flame ; over these last the Morth- 
wyrtha bowed her head, and then, lifting it, triumphautiy 
burst once more into song. 

“When the Wolf Month,* grim and still, 

Heaps the snow-mass on the hill; 

When, through white air sharp and bitter, 

Mocking sun-beams freeze and glitter; 

When the ice-gems bright and barbed, 

Deck the boughs the leaves have garbed; 

Then the measure shall be meted, 

And the circle be completed. 

Cerdic’s race the Thor-descended, 

In the Monk-king’s tomb be ended; 

And no Saxon brow but thine 
Wear the crown of Woden’s line. 


* Wolf Month, January. 


HAROLD. 


45 


“Where thou wendest, wend unfearing, 
Every step thy throne is nearing. 

Fraud may plot, and force assail thee, — 
Shall the soul thou trustest fail thee? 

If it fail thee, scornful hearer, 

Still the throne shines near and nearer. 
Guile with guile oppose, and never 
Crown and brow shall Force dissever: 
Till the dead men unforgiving 
Loose the war-steeds on the living. 

Till a sun whose race is ending 
Sees the rival stars contending, 

Where the dead men unforgiving. 

Wheel the war-steeds round the living. 

“Where thou wendest, wend unfearing; 
Every step thy throne is nearing. 

Never shall thy House decay, 

Nor thy sceptre pass away, 

While the Saxon name endureth 
In the land thy throne secureth; 

Saxon name and throne together, 

Leaf and root, shall wax and wither; 

So the measure shall be meted, 

And the circle close completed. 

“ Art thou answered, dauntless seeker ? 

Go, thy bark shall ride the breaker — 
Every billow high and higher, 

Waft thee up to thy desire; 

And a force beyond thine own, 

Drift and strand thee on the throne. 

“When the Wolf Month, grim and still. 
Piles the snow-mass on the hill, 

In the white air sharp and bitter 
Shall thy kingly sceptre glitter: 

When the ice-gems barb the bough, 

Shall the jewels clasp thy brow ; 


46 


H AKOLD. 


Winter- wind, the oak uprending; 

With the altar-anthem blending, 

Wind shall howl, and mone shall sing, 

‘Hail to Harold — Hail the Kino!’” 

An exultation that seemed more than human, so in- 
tense it was, and so solemn, — thrilled, in the voice which 
thus closed predictions that seemed signally to belie the 
more vague and menacing warnings with which the 
dreary incantation had commenced. The Morthwyrtha 
stood erect and stately, still gazing on the pale blue flame 
that rose from the burial stone, till slowly the flame waned 
and paled, and at last died with a sudden flicker, leaving 
the grey tomb standing forth all weather-worn and deso- 
late, while a wind rose from the north, and sighed through 
the roofless columns. Then, as the light over the grave 
expired, Hilda gave a deep sigh, and fell to the ground 
senseless. 

Harold lifted his eyes towards the stars, and mur- 
mured — 

“ If it be a sin, as the priests say, to pierce the dark 
walls which surround us here, and read the future in the 
dim world beyond, why gavest thou, 0 Heaven, the 
reason, never resting, save when it explores ? Why hast 
thou set in the heart the mystic Law of Desire, ever 
toiling to the High, ever grasping at the Far?” 

Heaven answered not the unquiet soul. The clouds 
passed to and fro in their wanderings, the wind still sighed 
through the hollow stones, the fire shot with vain sparks 


HAROLD. 


47 


towards the distant stars. In the cloud and the wind 
and the fire couldst thou read no answer from Heaven, 
unquiet soul ? 

The next day, with a gallant company, the falcon on 
his wrist,* the sprightly hound gambolling before his 
Bteed, blithe of heart and high in hope, E>.ii Harold 
took his way to the Norman court. 

* Bayeux tapestry. 



BOOK NINTII. 


THE BONES OF THE DEAD 


CHAPTER I. 

William, count of the Normans, sate in a fair chain 
ber of his palace of Rouen ; and on the large table be- 
fore him were ample evidences of the various labors, as 
warrior, chief, thinker, and statesman, which filled the 
capacious breadth of that sleepless mind. 

There, lay a plan of the new port of Cherbourg, and 
beside it an open MS. of the duke’s favorite book, the 
Commentaries of Caesar, from which, it is said, he bor- 
rowed some of the tactics of his own martial science ; 
marked, and dotted, and interlined with his large bold 
hand-writing, were the words of the great Roman. A 
score or so of long arrows, which had received gome 
skilful improvement in feather or bolt, lay carelessly scat- 
tered over some architectural sketches of a new abbey 
church, and the proposed charter for its endowment. An 
open cyst, of the beautiful workmanship for which the 
English goldsmiths were then pre-eminently renowned. 

( 48 ) 


HAROLD. 


19 


that had been among the parting gifts of Edward, con- 
tained letters from the various potentates near and far, 
who sought his alliance or menaced his repose. 

On a perch behind him sate his favorite Norway falcon, 
unhooded, for it had been taught the finest polish in its 
dainty education, — viz., “to face company undisturbed. ” 
At a kind of easel at the farther end of the hall, a dwarf, 
misshapen in limbs, but of a face singularly acute and 
intelligent, was employed in the outline of that famous 
action at Yal des Dunes, which had been the scene of 
one of the most brilliant of William’s feats in arms — an 
outline intended to be transferred to the notable “stitch- 
work” of Matilda the Duchess. 

Upon the floor, playing with a huge boar hound of 
English breed, that seemed but ill to like the play, and 
every now and then snarled and showed his white teeth, 
was a young boy, with something of the duke’s features, 
but with an expression more open and less sagacious ; 
and something of the duke’s broad build of chest and 
shoulder, but without promise of the duke’s stately 
stature, which was needed to give grace and dignity to a 
strength otherwise cumbrous and graceless. And indeed, 
since William’s visit to England, his athletic shape had 
lost much of its youthful symmetry, though not yet de- 
formed by that corpulence which was a disease almost as 
rare in the Norman as the Spartan. Nevertheless, what 
is a defect in the gladiator is often but a beauty in the 
prince ; and the duke’s large proportions filled the eye 
with a sense both of regal majesty and physical power. 
II.— 5 2c 


50 


HAROL 


His countenance, yet more than his form, showed the 
work of time ; the short dark hair was worn into partial 
baldness at the temples by the habitual friction of the 
casque, and the constant indulgence of wily stratagem 
and ambitious craft had deepened the wrinkles round the 
plotting eye and the firm mouth : so that it was only by 
an effort like that of an actor, that his aspect regained 
the knightly and noble frankness it had once worn. The 
accomplished prince was no longer, in truth, what the 
bold warrior had been, — he was greater in state and less 
in soul. And already, despite all his grand qualities as 
a ruler, his imperious nature had betrayed signs of what 
he (whose constitutional sternness the Norman freemen, 
not without effort, curbed into the limits of justice) might 
become, if wider scope were afforded to his fiery passions 
and unsparing will. 

Before the duke, who was leaning his chin on his hand, 
stood Mallet de Graville, speaking earnestly, and his dis- 
course seemed both to interest and please his lord. 

“Eno’l” said William, “I comprehend the nature d 
the land and its men, — a land that, untaught by experi- 
ence and persuaded that a peace of twenty or thirty years 
must last till the crack of doom, neglects all its defences, 
and has not one fort, save Dover, between the coast and 
the capital, — a land which must be won or lost by a single 
battle, and men [here the duke hesitated] — and men” 
he resumed with a sigh, “ whom it will be so hard to con- 
quer, that, pardex, I don’t wonder they neglect their for- 
tresses. Enough, I say, of them. Let us return to 


HAROLD. $1 

Harold, — thou thinkest, then, that he is worthy of his 
fame ? ” 

“ He is almost the only Englishman I have seen,” 
answered De GravMle, u who hath received scholarly rear- 
ing and nurture ; and all his faculties are so evenly 
balanced, and all accompanied by so composed a calm, 
that methinks, when I look at and hear him, I contem- 
plate some artful castle, — the strength of which can 
never be known at the first glance, nor except by those 
who assail it.” 

“ Thou art mistaken, Sire de Graville,” said the duke, 
with a shrewd and cunning twinkle of his luminous dark 
eyes. “ For thou tellest me that he hath no thought of 
my pretensions to the English throne, — that he inclines 
willingly to thy suggestions to come himself to my court 
for the hostages, — that, in a word, he is not suspicious.” 

“ Certes, he is not suspicious,” returned Mallet. 

“And thinkest thou that an artful castle were worth 
much without warder or sentry, — or a cultivated mind 
strong and safe, without its watchman, — Suspicion ?” 

“ Truly, my lord speaks well and wisely,” said the 
knight, startled : “but Harold is a man thoroughly Eng- 
lish, and the English are a gens the least suspecting of 
any created thing between an angel and a sheep.” 

William laughed aloud. But his laugh was checked 
suddenly ; for at that moment a fierce yell smote his ears, 
and looking hastily up, he saw his hound and his son 
rolling together on the ground, in a grapple that seemed 
deadly. 


52 


H A R O L Dv 


William sprang to the spot ; but the boy, who was 
then under the dog, cried out, — “ Laissez alter ! Laissez 
aller! no rescue ! I will master my own foe ; ” and so 
saying, with a vigorous effort he gained his knee, and 
with both hands griped the hound’s throat, so that the 
beast twisted in vain, to and fro, with gnashing jaws, and 
in another minute would have panted out its last. 

“ I may save my good hound now,’’ said William, with 
the gay smile of his earlier days, and, though not without 
some exertion of his prodigious strength, he drew the dog 
from his son’s grasp. 

“ That was ill done, father,” said Robert, surnamed 
even then the Courthose, “ to take part with thy son's 
foe.” 

“ But my son’s foe is thy father’s property, my vaillant,” 
said the duke ; “ and thou must answer to me for treason 
in provoking quarrel and feud with my own four-footed 
vavasour.” 

“ It is not thy property, father ; thou gavest the dog 
to me when a whelp.” 

“ Fables, Monseigneur de Courthose; I lent it to thee 
but for a day, when thou hadst put out thine ankle-bone 
in jumping off the rampire ; and all maimed as thou wert, 
thou hadst still malice enow in thee to worry the poor 
beast into a fever.” 

“ Grave or lent, it is the same thing, father ; what I 
have once, that will I hold, as thou didst before me, in 
thy cradle.” 

Then the great duke, who in his own house was the 


HAROLD. 


53 


fondest and weakest of men, was so doltish and doting 
as to take the boy in his arms and kiss him, — nor, with 
all his far-sighted sagacity, deemed he that in that kiss 
lay the seed of the awful curse that grew up from a 
father’s agony, to end in a son’s misery and perdition. 

Even Mallet de Graville frowned at the sight of the 
sire’s infirmity, — even Turold the dwarf shook his head. 
At that moment an officer entered, and announced that 
an English nobleman, apparently in great haste (for his 
horse had dropped down dead as he dismounted), had 
arrived at the palace, and craved instant audience of the 
duke. William put down the boy, gave the brief order 
for the stranger’s admission, and, punctilious in ceremo- 
nial, beckoning De Graville to follow him, passed at once 
into the next chamber, and seated himself in his chair 
of state. 

In a few moments one of the seneschals of the palace 
ushered in a visitor, whose long moustache at once pro- 
claimed him Saxon, and in whom De Graville with sur- 
prise recognized his old friend, Godrith. The young 
thegn, with a reverence more hasty than that to which 
William was accustomed, advanced to the foot of the 
dais, and, using the Norman language, said, in a voice 
thick with emotion — 

“ From Harold the earl, greeting to thee, Monseigneur. 
Most foul and unchristian wrong hath been done the earl 
by thy liegeman, Guy, Count of Ponthieu. Sailing hither 
in two barks from England, with intent to visit thy court, 
storm and wind drove the earl’s vessels towards the mouth 
5 * 


HAROLD. 


)f Jiu Somme ; * there landing, and without fear, as in 
no hostile country, he and his train were seized by the 
count himself, and cast into prison in the Castle of Bel- 
rem.'t* A dungeon fit but for malefactors, holds, while I 
speak, the first lord of England, and brother-in-law to its 
king. Nay, hints of famine, torture, and death itself, 
have been darkly thrown out by this most disloyal count, 
whether in earnest, or with the base view of heightening 
ransom. At length, wearied perhaps by the earl’s firm- 
ness and disdain, this traitor of Ponthieu hath permitted 
me in the earl’s behalf to bear the message of Harold. 
He came to thee as to a prince and a friend : suffered 
thou thy liegeman to detain him as a thief or a foe ? ” 

“Noble Englishman,” replied William, gravely, “this 
is a matter more out of my cognizance than thou seemest 
to think. It is true that Guy, Count of Ponthieu, holds 
fief under me, but I have no control over the laws of his 
realm. And by those laws, he hath right of life and 
death over all stranded and waifed on his coast. Much 
grieve I for the mishap of your famous earl, and what I 
can do I will : but I can only treat in this matter with 
Guy, as prince with prince, not as lord to vassal. Mean- 
while I pray you to take rest and food ; and I will seek 
prompt counsel as to the measures to adopt.” 

The Saxon’s face showed disappointment and dismay 
at this answer, so different from what he had expected ; 


* Roman de Rou. See Part ii. 1078. 
f Belrem, the present Beauraiu, near Montreuil 


HAROLD. 


55 


and he replied with the natural honest bluntness which 
all his younger affection of Norman manners had never 
eradicated — 

“ Food will I not touch, nor wine drink, till thou, Lord 
Count, hast decided what help, as noble to noble, Chris- 
tian to Christian, man to man, thou givest to him who 
has come into this peril, solely from his trust in thee.’ , 

“Alas ! ” said the grand dissimulator, “ heavy is the 
responsibility with which thine ignorance of our land, 
laws, and men, would charge me. If I take but one 
false step in this matter, woe indeed to thy lord ! Guy 
is hot and haughty, and in his droits ; he is capable of 
sending me the earl’s head in reply to too dure a request 
for his freedom. Much treasure and broad lands will it 
cost me, I fear, to ransom the earl. But be cheered ; 
half my duchy were not too high a price for thy lord’s 
safety. Go, then, and eat with a good heart, and drink 
to the earl’s health with a hopeful prayer.” 

“An’ it please you, ray lord,” said De Graville, “I 
know this gentle thegn, and will beg of you the. grace 
to see to his entertainment, and sustain his spirits.” 

“ Thou shalt, but later ; so noble a guest none but my 
chief seneschal should be the first to honor.” Then, 
turning to the officer in waiting, he bade him lead the 
Saxon to the chamber tenanted by William Fitzosborne 
(who then lodged within the palace), and committed him 
to that count’s care. 

As the Saxon sullenly withdrew, and as the door closed 


56 


HAROLD. 


on him, William rose and strode to and fro the room 
excitingly. 

“ I have him ! I have him ! ” he cried aloud ; “not as 
free guest, but as ransomed captive. I have him — the 
earl ! — I have him ! Go Mallet, my friend, now seek 
this sour-looking Englishman ; and, hark thee ! fill his 
cars with all the tales thou canst think of, as to Guy’s 
cruelty and ire. Enforce all the difficulties that lie in my 
way towards the earl’s delivery. Great make the danger 
of the earl’s capture, and vast all the favor of release. 
Comprehendest thou?” 

“ I am Norman, Monseigneur ,” replied De Graville, 
with a slight smile ; “and we Normans can make a short 
mantle cover a large space. You will not*be displeased 
with my address.” 

“Go, then — go,” said William, “and send me forth- 
with — Lanfranc — no, hold — not Lanfranc, he is too 
scrupulous; Fitzosborne — no, too haughty. Go, first 
to my brother, Odo of Bayeux, and pray him to seek me 
on the instant.” 

The knight bowed and vanished, and William con- 
tinued to pace the room, with sparkling eyes and mur- 
muring lips. 


HAROLD. 


57 


CHAPTER II. 

Not till after repeated messages, at first without talk 
of ransom, and in high tone, affected, no doubt, by 
William to spin out the negotiations, and augment the 
value of his services, did Guy of Ponthieu consent to 
release his illustrious captive — the guerdon, a large sum 
and un bel manier * on the river Eaulne. But whether 
that guerdon were the fair ransom-fee, or the price for 
concerted snare, no rilan now can say, and sharper than 
ours the wit that forms the more likely guess. These 
stipulations effected, Guy himself opened the doors of 
the dungeon ; and affecting to treat the whole matter as 
one of law and right, now happily and fairly settled, was 
as courteous and debonnair as he had before been dark 
and menacing. 

He even himself, with a brilliant train, accompanied 
Harold to the Chateau d'Eu,^ whither William journeyed 
to give him the meeting ; and laughed with a gay grace 
at the earl’s short and scornful replies to his compliments 
and excuses. At the gates of this chateau, not famous, 
in after times, for the good faith of its lords, William 
himself, laying aside all the pride of etiquette which he 

* Roman de Rou. Part ii. 1079. 
f William of Poitiers, “apud Aucense Castrum.” 


5 * 


58 


HAROLD. 


had established at his court, came to receive his visitor ; 
and, aiding him to dismount, embraced him cordially, 
amidst a loud fanfaron of fifes and trumpets. 

The flower of that glorious nobility, which a few 
generarions had sufficed to rear out of the lawless pirates 
of the Baltic, had beeu selected to do honor alike to 
guest and host. 

There were Hugo de Montfort, and Roger de Beau- 
mont, famous in council as in the field, and already grey 
with fame. There was Henri, Sire de Ferrers, whose 
name is supposed to have arisen from the vast forges that 
burned around his castle, on the anvils of which were 
welded the arms impenetrable in eyery field. There was 
Raoul de Tancarville, the old tutor of William, heredi- 
tary Chamberlain of the Norman Counts; and Geoffroi 
de Mandeville, and Tonstain the Fair, whose name still 
preserved, amidst the general corruption of appellations, 
the evidence of his Danish birth ; and Hugo de Grant- 
nesnil, lately returned from exile ; and Humphrey de 
Bohun, whose old castle in Carcutan may yet be seen ; 
and St. John, and Lacie, and D’Aincourt, of broad lands 
between the Maine and the Oise ; and William de Mont- 
fichet ; and Roger, nicknamed “ Bigod,” and Roger de 
Mortemer ; and many more, whose fame lives in another 
land than that of Neustria ! There, too, were the chief 
prelates and abbots of a church, that since William’s 
accession had risen into repute with Rome and with 
Learning, unequalled on this side the Alps ; their white 
aubes over their gorgeous robes; Lanfranc, and the 


HAROLD. 


59 


Bishop of Coutance, and the Abbot of Bee, and foremost 
of all in rank, but not in learning, Odo of Bayeux. 

So great the assemblage of quens and prelates, that 
there was small room in the court-yard for the lesser 
knights and chiefs, who yet hustled each other, with loss 
of Norman dignity, for a sight of the lion which guarded 
England. And still, amidst all those men of mark and 
might, Harold, simple and calm, looked as he had looked 
on his war-ship in the Thames, the man who could lead 
them all ! 

From those indeed, who were fortunate enough to see 
him as he passed up by the side of William, as tall as 
the Duke, and no less erect — of far slighter bulk, but 
with a strength almost equal, to a practised eye, in his 
compacter symmetry and more supple grace — from those 
who saw him thus, an admiring murmur rose ; for no 
men in the world so valued and cultivated personal 
advantages as the Norman knighthood. 

Conversing easily with Harold, and well watching him 
while he conversed, the duke led his guest into a private 
chamber in the third floor * of the castle, and in that 
chamber were Haco and Wolnoth. 

“ This, I trust, is no surprise to you,” said the duke, 
smiling ; “and now I shall but mar your commune.” So 
saying, he left the room, and Wolnoth rushed to his 

* As soon as the rude fort of the middle ages admitted spme- 
thing of magnificence and display, the state-rooms were placed in 
the third story of the inner court, as being the most secure. 


60 


HAROLD. 


brother’s arms, while Haco, more timidly, drew near and 
touched the earl’s robe. 

As soon as the first joy of the meeting was over, the 
earl said to Haco, whom he had drawn to his breast with 
an embraQe as fond as that bestowed on Wolnoth : — 

“ Remembering thee a boy, I came to say to thee, ‘Be 
my son;’ but seeing thee a man, I change the prayer; 
— supply thy father’s place, and be my brother! And 
thou, Wolnoth, hast thou kept thy word to me ? Norman 
is thy garb, in truth ; is thy heart still English ? ” 

“Hist !” whispered Haco ; “hist ! We have a pro* 
verb, that walls have ears.” 

“But Norman walls can hardly understand our broad 
Saxon of Kent, I trust,” said Harold, smiling, though 
with a shade on his brow. 

“True; continue to speak Saxon,” said Haco, “and 
we are safe.” 

“ Safe ! ” echoed Harold. 

“ Haco’s fears are childish, my brother,” said Wolnoth, 
“and he wrongs the Duke.” 

“Not the Duke, but the policy which surrounds him 
like an atmosphere,” exclaimed Haco. “ Oh, Harold, 
generous indeed wert thou to come hither for thy kins- 
folk — generous! But for England’s weal, better that 
we had rotted out our lives in exile, ere thou, hope and 
prop of England, set foot in these webs of wile.” 

“Tut!” said Wolnoth, impatiently; “good is it for 
England that the Norman and Saxon should be friends.” 

Harold, who had lived to grow as wise in men’s hearts 


HAROLD. 


61 


as his father, save when the natural trustfulness that lay 
under his calm reserve lulled his sagacity, turned his eye 
steadily on the faces of his two kinsmen ; and he saw at 
the first glance that a deeper intellect and a graver temper 
than Wolnoth’s fair face betrayed, characterized the dark 
eye and serious brow of Haco. He, therefore, drew his 
nephew a little aside, and said to him, — 

“ Forewarned is forearmed. Deemest thou that this 
fair-spoken duke will dare aught against my life ? ” 

“Life, no; liberty, yes.” 

Harold started, and those strong passions native to his 
breast, but usually curbed beneath his majestic will, heaved 
in his bosom, and flashed in his eye. 

“ Liberty ! — let him dare ! Though all his troops paved 
the way from his court to his coasts, I would hew my way 
through their ranks.” 

“Deemest thou that I am a coward?” said Haco, 
simply ; “yet contrary to all law and justice, and against 
King Edward’s well-known remonstrance, hath not the 
count detained me years, yea, long years, in his land? 
Kind are his words, wily his deeds. Fear not force ; fear 
fraud.” 

“ I fear neither,” answered Harold, drawing himself 
up, “nor do I repent me one moment — No! nor did I 
repent in the dungeon of that felon count, whom God 
grant me life to repay with fire and sword for his treason 
— that I myself have come hither to demand my kinsmen. 
I come in the name of England, strong in her might, and 
sacred in her majesty.” 

II.— 6 


62 


HAROLD. 


Before Haco could reply, the door opened, and Raoul 
de Tancarville, as grand chamberlain, entered, with all 
Harold’s Saxon train, and a goodly number of Norman 
squires and attendants, bearing rich vestures. 

The noble bowed to the earl with his country s polished 
courtesy, and besought leave to lead him to the bath, 
while his own squires prepared his raiment for the ban- 
quet to be held in his honor. So all further conference 
with his young kinsmen was then suspended. 

The duke, who affected a state no less regal than that 
of the court of France, permitted no one, save his own 
family and guests, to sit at his own table. His great 
officers (those imperious lords) stood beside his chair ; 
and William Fitzosborne, “ the Proud Spirit,” placed on 
the board with his own hand the dainty dishes for which 
the Norman cooks were renowned. And great men were 
those Norman cooks; and often for some “delicate,” 
more ravishing than wont, gold chain and gem, and even 
“ bel maneir ,” fell to their guerdon.* It was worth being 
a cook in those days ! 

The most seductive of men, was William in his fair 
moods ; and he lavished all the witcheries at his control 
upon his guest. If possible, yet more gracious was 
Matilda the Duchess. This woman, eminent for mental 
culture, for personal beauty, and for a spirit and an am- 
bition no less great than her lord’s, knew well how to 

* A manor (but not, alas! in Normandy) was held by one of his 
cooks, on the tenure of supplying William with a dish of dille- 
grout. 


HAROLD. 


63 


choose such subjects of discourse as might most flatter 
an English ear. Her connection with Harold, througn 
her sister’s marriage with Tostig, warranted a familiarity 
almost caressing, which she assumed towards the comely 
earl ; and she insisted, with a winning smile, that all the 
hours the duke would leave at his disposal, he must spend 
with her. 

The banquet was enlivened by the song of the great 
Taillefer himself, who selected a theme that artfully flat- 
tered alike the Norman and the Saxon, viz., the aid given 
by Rolfganger to Athelstan, and the alliance between the 
English king and the Norman founder. He dexterously 
introduced into the song, praises of the English, and the 
value of their friendship ; and the countess significantly 
applauded each gallant compliment to the land of the 
famous guest. If Harold was pleased by such poetic 
courtesies, he was yet more surprised by the high honor 
in which duke, baron, and prelate, evidently held the 
poet : for it was among the worst signs of that sordid 
spirit, honoring only wealth, which had crept over the 
original character of the Anglo-Saxon, that the bard, or 
scop, with them, had sunk into great disrepute, and it 
was even forbidden to ecclesiastics * to admit such land- 
less vagrants to their company. 

Much, indeed, theie was in that court which, even on 
the first day, Harold saw to admire — that stately tem- 
perance, so foreign to English excesses (but which, alas, 


* The council of Cloveshoe forbade the clergy to harbor poets, 
harpers, musicians, and buffoons. 


64 


HAROLD. 


the Norman kept not long when removed to another soil) 
— that methodical state and noble pomp which charac- 
terized the Feudal system, linking so harmoniously prince 
to peer, and peer to knight— the easy grace, the polished 
wit of the courtiers — the wisdom of Lanfranc, and the 
higher ecclesiastics, blending worldly lore with decorous, 
not pedantic, regard to their sacred calling — the en- 
lightened love of music, letters, song, and art, which 
colored the discourse both of duke and duchess and the 
younger courtiers, prone to emulate high example, whe- 
ther for ill or good — all impressed Harold with a sense 
of civilization and true royalty, which at once saddened 
and inspired his musing mind — saddened him when he 
thought how far behindhand England was in much, with 
this comparatively petty principality — inspired him when 
he felt what one great chief can do for his native land. 

The unfavorable impressions made upon his thoughts 
by Haco’s warnings, could scarcely fail to yield beneath 
the prodigal courtesies lavished upon him, and the frank 
openness with which William laughingly excused himself 
for having so long detained the hostages, “ in order, my 
guest, to make thee come and fetch them ; and, by St. 
Valery, now thou art here, thou shalt not depart, till, at 
least, thou hast lost in gentler memories, the recollection 
of the scurvy treatment thou hast met from that barbar- 
ous count; nay, never bite thy lip, Harold, my friend, 
leave to me thy revenge upon Guy. Sooner or later, 
the very maneir he hath extorted from me shall give ex- 
cuse for sword and lance, and then, pardex, thou shalt 


HAROLD. 


65 


come and cross steel in tliine own quarrel. How 1 rejoice 
that I can show to the beau frere of my dear consin and 
seigneur some return for all the courtesies the English 
king and kingdom bestowed upon me ! To-morrow we 
will ride to Rouen ; there, all knightly sports shall be 
held to grace thy coming ; and, by St. Michael, knight- 
saint of the Norman, nought less will content me than to 
have thy great name in the list of my chosen chevaliers. 
But the night wears now, and thou sure must need sleep 
and, thus talking, the duke himself led the way to Ha- 
rold’s chamber, and insisted on removing the ouche from 
his robe of state. As he did so, he passed his hand, as 
if carelessly, along the earl’s right arm. “Hal” said 
he suddenly, and in his natural tone of voice, which was 
short and quick, “ these muscles have known practice ! 
Post think thou couldst bend my bow ? ” 

“Who could bend that of — Ulysses?” returned the 
earl, fixing his deep-blue eye upon the Norman’s. Wil- 
liam unconsciously changed color, for he felt that he was 
at that moment more Ulysses than Achilles. 


CHAPTER III. 

•Side by side, William and Harold entered the fair city 
of Rouen, and there, a succession of the brilliant pageants 
and knightly entertainments (comprising those “ rare 
feats of honor,” expanded, with the following age, into 
6* 2d 


66 


HAROLD. 


the more gorgeous display of joust and tourney), was 
designed to dazzle the eyes and captivate the fancy of 
the earl. But though Harold won, even by tne confession 
of the chronicles most in favor of the Norman, golden 
opinions in a court more ready to deride than admire the 
Saxon — though not only the “ strength of his body,” and 
“the boldness of his spirit,” as shown in exhibitions 
unfamiliar to Saxon warriors, but his “manners,” his 
“eloquence, intellect, and other good qualities,”* were 
loftily conspicuous amidst those knightly courtiers, that 
sublimer part of his character, which was found in its 
simple manhood and intense nationality, kept him un- 
moved and serene amidst all intended to exercise that 
fatal spell which Normauized most of those who came 
within the circle of Norman attraction. 

These festivities were relieved by pompous excursions 
and progresses from town to town, and fort to fort, 
throughout the duchy, and, according to some authori- 
ties, even to a visit to Philip, the French king, at Com- 
peigne. On the return to Rouen, Harold, and the six 
thegns of his train, were solemnly admitted into that 
peculiar band of warlike brothers which William had 
instituted, and to which, following the chronicles of the 
after century, we have given the name of knights. The 
silver baldrick was belted on, and the lance, with its 
pointed banderol, was placed in the hand, and the seveD 
Saxon lords became Norman knights. 


* Ord. Vital. 


HAROLD. 


67 


The evening after this ceremonial, Harold was with 
» 

the duchess and her fair daughters — all children. The 
beauty of one of the girls drew from him those compli- 
ments. so sweet to a mother’s ear. Matilda looked up 
from the broidery on which she was engaged, and 
beckoned to her the child thus praised. 

“Adeliza,” she said, placing her hand on the girl’s 
dark locks, “ though we would not that thou shouldst 
learn too early how men’s tongues can gloze and flatter, 
yet this noble guest hath so high a repute for truth, that 
thou mayest at least believe him sincere when he says 
thy face is fair. Think of it, and with pride, my child ; 
let it keep thee through youth proof against the homage 
of meaner men ; and, peradventure, St. Michael and St. 
Yalery may bestow on thee a mate valiant and comely as 
this noble lord.” 

The child blushed to her brow ; but answered with the 
quickness of a spoiled infant — unless, perhaps, she had 
been previously tutored so to reply, — “ Sweet mother, I 
will have no mate and no lord but Harold himself ; and 
if he will not have Adeliza as his wife, she will die a 
nun.” 

“ Froward child, it is not for thee to woo ! ” said Ma- 
tilda, smiling. “ Thon heardest her, noble Harold : what 
is thine answer?” 

“ That she will grow wiser,” said the earl, laughing, as 
he kissed the child’s forehead. “ Fair damsel, ere thou 
art ripe for the altar, time will have sown grey in these 


68 


HAROLD. 


iocks ; and thou wouldst smile indeed in scorn, if Harold 
then claimed thy troth. ” 

“Not so,” said Matilda, seriously; “high-born dam- 
sels see youth not in years but in fame — fame, which is 
young for ever ! ” 

Startled by the gravity with which Matilda spoke, as 
if to give importance to what had seemed a jest, the earl, 
versed in courts, felt that a snare was round him, and 
replied, in a tone between jest and earnest : — “ Happy 
am I to wear on my heart a charm proof against all the 
beauty even of this court.” 

Matilda’s face darkened ; and William entering at that 
time with his usual abruptness, lord and lady exchanged 
glances, not unobserved by Harold. 

The duke, however, drew aside the Saxon, and saying, 
gaily, “ We Normans are not naturally jealous ; but then, 
till now, we have not had Saxon gallants closeted with 
our wives ; ” added more seriously, “ Harold, I have a 
grace to pray at thy hands — come with me.” 

The earl followed William into his chamber, which he 
found filled with chiefs, in high converse ; and William 
then hastened to inform him that he was about to make 
a military expedition against the Bretons ; and knowing 
his peculiar acquaintance with the warfare, as with the 
language and manners, of their kindred Welch, he be- 
sought his aid in a campaign, which he promised him 
should be brief. 

Perhaps the earl was not, in his own mind, averse 
from returning William’s display of power by some evi- 


HAROLD. 


dence of his own military skill, and the valor of the 
Saxon thegns in his train. There might be prudence in 
such exhibition, and, at all events, he could not with a 
good grace decline the proposal. He enchanted William, 
therefore, by a simple acquiescence ; and the rest of the 
evening — deep into night — was spent in examining charts 
of the fort and country intended to be attacked. 

The conduct and courage of Harold and his Saxons 
in this expedition are recorded by the Norman chroni- 
clers. The earl’s personal exertions saved, at the passage 
of Coesnon, a detachment of soldiers, who would other- 
wise have perished in the quicksands : and even the 
warlike skill of William, in the brief and brilliant cam- 
paign, was, if not eclipsed, certainly equalled, by that of 
the Saxon chief. 

While the campaign lasted, William and Harold had 
but one table and one tent. To outward appearance, the 
familiarity between the two was that of brothers; in 
reality, however, these two men, both so able — one so 
deep in his guile, the other so wise in his tranquil caution 
— felt that a silent war between the two for mastery was 
working on, under the guise of loving peace. 

Already Harold was conscious that the politic motives 
for his mission had failed him ; already he perceived, 
though he scarce knew why, that William the Norman 
was the last man to whom he could confide his ambition, 
or trust for aid. 

One day, as during a short truce with the defenders 
of the place they were besieging, the Normans were 


70 


HAROLD. 


diverting their leisure with martial games, in which 
Taillefer shone pre-eminent; while Harold and William 
stood without their tent, watching the animated field, 
the duke abruptly exclaimed, to Mallet de Graville, 
“Bring me my bow. Now, Harold, let me see if thou 
canst bend it.” 

The bow was brought, and Saxon and Norman gathered 
round the spot. 

“ Fasten thy glove to yonder tree, Mallet,” said the 
duke, taking that mighty bow in his hand, and bending 
its stubborn yew into the noose of the string with prac- 
tised ease. 

Then he drew the arc to his ear ; and the tree itself 
seemed to shake at the shock, as the shaft, piercing the 
glove, lodged half-way in the trunk. 

“ Such are not our weapons,” said the earl ; “ and ill 
would it become me, unpractised, so to peril our English 
honor, as to strive against the arm that could bend that 
arc and wing that arrow. But, that I may show these 
Norman knights, that at least we have some weapon 
wherewith we can parry shaft and smite assailer — bring 
me forth, Godrith, my shield and my Danish axe.” 

Taking the shield and axe which the Saxon brought 
to him, Harold then stationed himself before the tree. 

“Now, fair duke,” said he, smiling, “choose thou thy 
longest shaft — bid thy ten doughtiest archers take their 
bows ; round this tree will I move, and let each shaft be 
aimed at whatever space in my mailless body I leave 
unguarded by my shield.” 


HAROLD. 


n 


“No ! ” said William, hastily ; “ that were murder.” 

“ It is but the common peril of war,” said Harold, 
simply ; and he walked to the tree. 

The blood mounted to William’s brow, and the lion’s 
thirst of carnage parched his throat. 

“An’ he will have it so,” said he, beckoning to his 
archers, “let not Normandy be shamed. Watch well, 
aud let every shaft go home ; avoid only the head and 
the heart ; such orgulous vaunting is best cured by blood- 
letting.” 

The archers nodded, and took their post, each at a 
separate quarter; and deadly, indeed, seemed the danger 
of the earl, for, as he moved, though he kept his back 
guarded by the tree, some parts of his form the sh'eld 
left exposed, and it would have been impossible, in his 
quick-shifting movements, for the archers so to aim as to 
wound, but to spare life ; yet the earl seemed to take no 
peculiar care to avoid the peril ; lifting his bare h^ad 
fearlessly above the shield, and including in one gaze of 
his steadfast eye, calmly bright even at the distance, all 
the shafts of the archers. 

At one moment, five of the arrows hissed through the 
air, and with such wonderful quickness had the shield 
turned to each, that three fell to the ground blunted 
against it, and two broke on its surface. 

But William, waiting for the first discharge, and seeing 
full mark at Harold’s shoulder, as the buckler turned, 
now sent forth his terrible shaft. The noble Taillefer, 
with a poet’s true sympathy, cried, “ Saxon, beware 1 ” 


72 


HAROLD. 


but the watchful Saxon needed not the warning. As if in 
disdain, Harold met not the shaft with his shield, but 
swinging high the mighty axe (which with most men 
required both arms to wield it), he advanced a step, and 
clove the rushing arrow in twain ! 

Before William’s loud oath of wrath and surprise left 
his lips, the five shafts of the remaining archers fell as 
vainly as their predecessors against the nimble shield. 

Then advancing, Harold said cheerfully : — “ This is 
but defence, fair duke — and little worth were the axe, if 
it could not smite as well as ward. Wherefore, I pray 
you, place upon yonder broken stone pillar, which seems 
some relic of Druid heathenesse, such helm and shirt of 
mail as thou deemest proof against sword and pertuizan, 
and judge then if our English axe can guard well our 
English land.” 

“If thy axe can cleave the helmet I wore at Bavent, 
when the Franks and their king fled before me,” said the 
duke, grimly, “I shall hold Caesar in fault, not to have 
invented a weapon so dread.” 

And striding back into his pavilion, he came forth with 
the helm and shirt of mail, which was worn stronger and 
heavier by the Normans, as fighting usually on horse- 
back, than by Dane and Saxon, who, mainly fighting on 
foot, could not have endured so cumbrous a burthen : and 
if strong and dour generally with the Norman, judge 
what solid weight that mighty duke could endure ! With 
his own hand William placed the mail on the ruined 
Druid stone, and on the mail the helm. 


HAROLD. 


73 

Harold looked long and gravely at the edge of the 
axe ; it was so richly gilt and damasquined, that the 
sharpness of its temper could not well have been divined 
under that holiday glitter. But this axe had come to 
him from Canute the Great, who himself, unlike the 
Danes, small and slight,* had supplied his deficiency of 
muscle by the finest dexterity and the most perfect 
weapons. Famous had been that axe in the delicate 
hand of Canute — how much more tremendous in the 
ample grasp of Harold ! Swinging now in both hands 
this weapon, with a peculiar and rapid whirl, which gave 
it an inconceivable impetus, the earl let fall the crushing 
blow : at the first stroke, cut right in the centre, rolled 
the helm ; at the second, through all the woven mail 
(cleft asunder, as if the slightest filagree- work of the 
goldsmith), shore the blade, and a great fragment of the 
stone itself came tumbling on the sod. 

The Normans stood aghast, and William’s face was as 
pale as the shattered stone. The great duke felt even 
his matchless dissimulation fail him ; nor, unused to the 
special practice and craft which the axe required, could 
he have pretended, despite a physical strength superior 
even to Harold’s, to rival blows that seemed to him more 
than mortal. 

“ Lives there any other man in the wide world whose 
arm could have wrought that feat?” exclaimed Bruse, 
the ancestor of the famous Scot. 


* Canute made liis inferior strength and stature his excuse for 
not meeting Edward Ironsides in single combat. 

II —7 


74 


HAROLD. 

“ Nav,” said Harold, simply, “ at least thirty thoasand 
such men have I left at home ! But this was but the 
stroke of an idle vanity, and strength becomes tenfold in 
a good cause.” 

The duke heard, and fearful lest he should betray his 
sense of the latent meaning couched under his guest’s 
words, he hastily muttered forth reluctant compliment 
and praise ; while Fitzosborne, De Bohun, and other 
chiefs more genuinely knightly, gave way to unrestrained 
admiration. 

Then beckoning Be Graville to follow him, the duke 
strode off towards the tent of his brother of Bayeux, who, 
though, except on extraordinary occasions, he did not 
join in positive conflict, usually accompanied William in 
his military excursions, both to bless the host, and to 
advise (for his martial science was considerable) the 
council of war. 

The bishop, who, despite the sanctimony of the court, 
and his own stern nature, was (though secretly and de- 
corously) a gallant of great success in other fields than 
those of Mars,* sate alone in his pavilion, inditing an 
epistle to a certain fair dame in Rouen, whom he had 
unwillingly left to follow his brother. At the entrance 
of William, whose morals in such matters were pure and 

* Odo’s licentiousness was, at a later period, one of the alleged 
causes of his downfall, or rather, against his release from the 
prison to which he had been consigned. He had a son named 
John, who distinguished himself under Henry I — Ord. Vital 
lib. iv. 


HAROLD, 


76 


rigid, he swept the letter into the chest of relics which 
always accompanied him, and rose, saying indifferently, — 

“ A treatise on the authenticity of St. Thomas’s little 
finger 1 But what ails you ? you are disturbed ! ” 

“Odo, Odo, this man baffles me — this man fools me ; I 
make no ground with him. I have spent — heaven knows 
what I have spent,” said the duke, sighing with penitent 
parsimony, “in banquets, and ceremonies, and proces- 
sions; to say nothing of my bel manier of Yonne, and the 
sum wrung from my coffers by that greedy Ponthevin. 
All gone — all wasted — all melted like snow ! and the 
Saxon is as Saxon as if he had seen neither Norman 
splendor, nor been released from the danger by Norman 
treasure. But, by the Splendor Divine, I were fool in- 
deed if I suffered him to return home. Would thou hadst 
seen the sorcerer cleave my helmet and mail just now, 
as easily as if they had been willow twigs. Oh, Odo, Odo, 
my soul is troubled, and St. Michael forsakes me!” 

While William ran on thus distractedly, the prelate 
lifted his eyes inquiringly to De Graville, who now stood 
within the tent, and the knight briefly related the recent 
trial of strength. 

“I see nought in this to chafe thee,” said Odo ; “the 
man once thine, the stronger the vassal, the more power- 
ful the lord.” 

“But he is not mine ; I have sounded him as far as I 
dare go. Matilda hath almost openly offered him my 
fairest child as his wife. Nothing dazzles, nothing moves 
him. Thinkest thou I care for his strong arm ? Tut, 


7 *> 


HAROLD. 


no ; I chafe at the proud heart that set the arm in motion, 
the proud meaning his words symbolled out, — ‘So will 
English strength guard English land from the Norman 
— so axe and shield will defy your mail and your 
shafts.’ But let him beware ! ” growled the duke fiercely 


“ May I speak,” interrupted De Graville, “ and suggest 
a counsel ? ” 

“Speak out, in God’s name I” cried the duke. 

“ Then I should Bay, with submission, that the way to 
tame a lion is not by gorging him, but daunting. Bold 
is the lion against open foes ; but a lion in the toils loses 
his nature. Just now, my lord said that Harold should 
not return to his native land ” 

“Nor shall he, but as my sworn man !” exclaimed the 
duke. 

“And if you now put to him that choice, think you it 
will favor your views ? Will he not reject your proffers, 
and with hot scorn ? ” 

“ Scorn ! darest thou that word to me ? ” cried the 
duke. “Scorn! have I no headsman whose axe is as 
sharp as Harold’s ? and the neck of a captive is not 
sheathed in my Norman mail.” 

“ Pardon, pardon, my liege,” said Mallet, with spirit ; 
“ but to save my chief from a hasty action that might 
bring long remorse, I spoke thus boldly. Give the earl 
at least fair warning : — a prison, or fealty to thee, that 
is the choice before him ! — let him know it; let him see 
that thy dungeons are dark, and thy walls impassable 


IIAROLD. 


•n 


Threaten not his life — brave men care not for that! 

threaten thyself nought, but let others work upon him 
with fear of his freedom. I know well these Saxish men ; 
I know well Harold ; freedom is their passion, they are 
cowards when threatened with the doom of four walls.” * 

“ I conceive thee, wise son,” exclaimed Odo. 

“ Ha ! ” said the duke, slowly ; “ and yet it was to pre- 
vent such suspicions that I took care, after the first 
meeting, to separate him from Haco and Wolnoth, for 
they must have learned much in Norman gossip, ill to 
repeat to the Saxon.” 

“ Wolnoth is almost wholly Norman,” said the bishop, 
smiling; “Wolnoth is bound par amours to a certain 
fair Norman dame ; and, I trow well, prefers her charms 
here to the thought of his return. But Haco, as thou 
knowest, is sullen and watchful.” 

“ So much the better companion for Harold now,” said 
De Graville. 

“ I am fated ever to plot aud to scheme ! ” said the 
duke, groaning, as if he had been the simplest of men ; 
“ but, natheless, I love the stout earl, and I mean all for 
his own good, — that is, compatibly with my rights and 
claims to the heritage of Edward ray cousin.” 

“ Of course,” said the bishop. 

* William of Poitiers, the contemporary Norman chronicler, says 
of Harold, that he was a man to whom imprisonment was more 
odious than shipwreck. 

►? * 

i 


78 


HAROLD 


CHAPTER IV. 

The snares now spread for Harold were in pursuance 
of the policy thus resolved on. The camp soon after- 
wards broke up, and the troops took their way to Bayeux 
William, without greatly altering his manner towards the 
earl, evaded markedly (or as markedly replied not to) 
Harold’s plain declarations, that his presence was re- 
quired in England, and that he could no longer defer his 
departure ; while, under pretence of being busied with 
affairs, he absented himself much from the earl’s com- 
pany, or refrained from seeing him alone, and suffered 
Mallet de Graville, and Odo the bishop, to supply his 
place with Harold. The earl’s suspicions now became 
thoroughly aroused, and these were fed both by the hints, 
kindly meant, of De Graville, and the less covert discourse 
of the prelate : while Mallet let drop, as in gossiping 
illustration of William’s fierce and vindictive nature, many 
anecdotes of that cruelty which really stained the Nor- 
man’s character, Odo, more bluntly, appeared to take it 
for granted that Harold’s sojourn in the land would be 
long. 

“You will have time,” said he, one day, as they rode 
together, “to assist me, I trust, in learning the. language 
of our forefathers. Danish is still spoken much at 


HAROLD. 


79 


Bayeux, the sole place in Neustria,* where the old tongue 
and customs still linger ; and it would serve my pastoral 
ministry to receive your lessons ; in a year or so, I might 
hope so to profit by them as to discourse freely with the 
less Frankish part of my flock.” 

“ Surely, Lord Bishop, you jest,” said Harold, se- 
riously ; “you know well that within a week, at farthest, 
I must sail back for England with my young kinsmen.” 

The prelate laughed. 

“ I advise you, dear count and son, to be cautious how 
you speak so plainly to William. I perceive that you 
have already ruffled him by such indiscreet remarks ; and 
you must have seen eno’ of the duke to know that, when 
his ire is up, his answers are short but his arms are long.” 

“You most grievously wrong Duke William,” cried 
Harold, indignantly, “to suppose, merely in that playful 
humor, for which ye Normans are famous, that he could 
lay force on his confiding guest.” 

“ No, not a confiding guest, — a ransomed captive. 
Surely my brother will deem that he has purchased of 
Count Guy his rights over his illustrious prisoner. But 
courage ! The Norman Court is not the Ponthevin dun- 
geon ; and your chains, at least, are roses.” 

The reply of wrath and defiance that rose to Harold’s 

* In the envii’ons of Bayeux still may perhaps linger the sole 
remains of the Scandinavian Normans, apart from the gentry. For 
centuries the inhabitants of Bayeux and its vicinity were a class 
distinct from the Franco-Normans, or the rest of Neustria; they 
submitted with great reluctance to the ducal authority, and re 
tained their old heathen cry of Thor-aide, instead of Dieu-aide! 


80 


HAROLD. 


lips, was checked by a sign from De Graville, who raised 
his finger to his lip with a face expressive of caution and 
alarm ; and, some little time after, as they halted to water 
their horses, De Graville came up to him and said in a 
low voice, and in Saxon — 

“ Be\i are how you speak too frankly to Odo. What is 
said to him is said to William ; and the duke, at times, so 
acts on the spur of the moment that — But let me not 
wrong him, or needlessly alarm you.” 

“ Sire de Graville,” said Harold, “ this is not the first 
time that the Prelate of Bayeux hath hinted at compul- 
sion, nor that you (no doubt kindly) have warned me of 
purpose hostile or fraudful. As plain man to plain man, 
I ask you, on your knightly honor, to tell me if you 
know aught to make you believe that William the Duke 
will, under any pretext, detain me here a captive ?” 

Now, though Mallet de Graville had lent himself to 
the service of an ignoble craft, he justified it by a better 
reason than complaisance to his lord ; for, knowing 
William well, his hasty ire, and his relentless ambition, 
he was really alarmed for Harold’s safety. And, as the 
reader may have noted, in suggesting that policy of inti- 
midation, the knight had designed to give the earl at 
leiat the benefit of forewarning. So, thus adjured, De 
Graville replied sincerely — 

“ Earl Harold, on my honor as your brother in knight- 
hood, I answer your plain question. I have cause to 
believe and to know that William will not suffer you to 


HAROLD. 


81 


depart, unless fully satisfied on certain points, which he 
himself will, doubtless, ere long make clear to you.” 

“And if I insist on my departure, not so satisfying 
him ?” 

“ Every castle on our road hath a dungeon as deep as 
Count Guy’s ; but where another William to deliver you 
from William ? ” 

“ Over yon seas, a prince mightier than William, an-d 
men as resolute, at least, as your Normans.” 

“ Cher et puissant, my Lord Earl,” answered De Gra- 
ville, “ these are brave words, but of no weight in the ear 
of a schemer so deep as the duke. Think you really, that 
King Edward — pardon my bluntness — would rouse him- 
self from his apathy, to do more in your behalf than he 
has done in your kinsmen’s — remonstrate and preach? 
— Are you even sure that on the representation of a man 
he hath so loved as William, he will not be content to 
rid his throne of so formidable a subject? You speak 
of the English people ; doubtless you are popular and 
beloved ; but it is the habit of no people, least of all your 
own, to stir actively and in concert, without leaders. 
The duke knows the factions of England as well as you 
do. Remember how closely he is connected with Tostig, 
your ambitious brother. Have you no fear that Tostig 
himself, earl of the most warlike part of the kingdom, 
will not only do his best to check the popular feeling in 
your favor, but foment every intrigue to detain you here, 
and leave himself the first noble in the land ? As for 
other leaders, save Gurth (who is but } our own vice-earl), 
7* 2e 


82 


HAROLD. 


who is there that will not rejoice at the absence of 
Harold ? You have made foes of the only family that 
approaches the power of your own — the heirs of Leofric 
and Algar. — Your strong hand removed from the reins 
of the empire, tumults and dissensions ere long will break 
forth that will distract men’s minds from an absent cap- 
tive, and centre them on the safety of their own hearths, 
or the advancement of their own interests. You see that 
I know something of the state of your native land ; but 
deem not my own observation, though not idle, sufficed 
to bestow that knowledge. I learn it more from William’s 
discourses ; William, who from Flanders, from Boulogne, 
from England itself, by a thousand channels, hears all 
that passes between the cliffs of Dover and the marches 
of Scotland.” 

Harold paused long before he replied, for his mind 
was now thoroughly awakened to his danger ; and, while 
recognizing the wisdom and intimate acquaintance of 
affairs with which De Graville spoke, he was also rapidly 
revolving the best course for himself to pursue in such 
extremes. At length he said — 

“ I pass by your remarks on the state of England, with 
but one comment. You underrate Gurth, my brother, 
when you speak of him but as the vice-earl of Harold. 
You underrate one, who needs but an object, to excel in 
arms and in council, my father Godwin himself. — That 
object a brother’s wrongs would create from a brother’s 
lov**., and three hundred ships would sail up the Seine to 


HAROLD. 


83 


demand your captive, manned by warriors as hardy as 
those who wrested Neustria from King Charles. ,, 

“Granted,” said de Gravilie. “But William, who 
could cut off the hands and feet of his own subjects for an 
idle jest on his birth, could as easily put out the eyes of 
a captive foe. And of what worth are the ablest brain, 
and the stoutest arm, when the man is dependent on 
another for very sight ? ” 

Harold involuntarily shuddered ; but recovering him- 
self on the instant, he replied, with a smile — 

“ Thou makest thy duke a butcher more fell than his 
ancestor Rolfganger. But thou saidst he needed but to 
be satisfied on certain points. What are they ? ” 

“ Ah, that thou must divine, or he unfold. But see, 
William himself approaches you.” 

And here, the duke, who had been till then in the rear, 
spurred up with courteous excuses to Harold for his long 
defection from his side ; and, as they resumed their way, 
talked with all his former frankness and gaiety. 

“ By the way, dear brother in arms,” said he, “ I have 
provided thee this evening with comrades more welcome, 
I fear, than myself — Haco and Wolnoth. That last is a 
youth whom I love dearly : the first is unsocial eno’, and 
methinks would make a better hermit than soldier. But, 
by St. Valery, I forgot to tell thee that an envoy from 
Flanders to-day, amongst other news, brought me some 
that may interest thee. There is a strong commotion in 
thy brother Tostig’s Northumbrian earldom, and the 
rumor runs, that his fierce vassals will drive him forth and 


84 


HAROLD. 


select some other lord : talk was of the sons of Algar — 
so I think ye called the stout dead earl. This looks 
grave, for my dear cousin Edward’s health is failing fast. 
May the saints spare him long from their rest!” 

“ These are indeed ill tidings,” said the earl ; “ and I 
trust that they suffice to plead at once my excuse for 
urging my immediate departure. Grateful I am for thy 
most gracious hostship, and thy just and generous inter- 
cession with thy liegeman ” (Harold dwelt emphatically 
on the last word), “ for my release from a capture dis- 
graceful to all Christendom. The ransom so nobly paid 
for me I will not insult thee, dear my lord, by affecting 
to repay ; but such gifts as our cheapraen hold most rare, 
perchance thy lady and thy fair children will deign to 
receive at my hands. Now may I ask but a vessel from 
thy nearest port ? ” 

“We will talk of this, dear guest and brother knight, 
on some later occasion. Lo, yon castle — ye have no 
such in England. See its vawmures and fosses 1 ” 

“A noble pile,” answered Harold. “But pardon me 
that I press for ” 

“ Ye have no such strong-holds, I say, in England,” 
interrupted the duke, petulantly. 

“ Nay,” replied the Englishman, “ we have two strong- 
holds far larger than that — Salisbury Plain and New- 
market Heath 1 * — strong-holds that will contain fifty 


* Similar was the answer of Goodyn, the bishop of Winchester, 
ambassador from Henry VIII. to the French king. To this day 


HAROLD. 


85 


thousand men who need no walls but their shields. 
Count William, England’s ramparts are her men, and her 
strongest castles are her widest plains.” 

“Ah !” said the duke, biting his lip, “ah, jo be it — 
but to return ; — in that castle, mark it well, the dukes 
of Normandy hold their prisoners of state ; ” and then he 
added with a laugh : “ but we hold you, noble captive, in 
a prison more strong — our love and our heart.” 

As he spoke, he turned his eye full upon Harold, and 
the gaze of the two encountered : that of the duke was 
brilliant, but stern and sinister ; that of Harold, steadfast 
and reproachful. As if by a spell, the eye of each rested 
long on that of the other — as the eyes of two lords of 
the forest, ere the rush and the spring. 

William was the first to withdraw his gaze, and as he 
did so, his lip quivered and his brow knit. Then, waving 
his hand for some of the lords behind to join him and the 
earl, he spurred his steed, and all further private con- 
versation was suspended. The train pulled not bridle 
before they reached a monastery, at which they rested for 
the night. 


the English entertain the same notion of forts as Harold and 
Goodyn. 


II —8 


8fi 


HAROLD 


CHAPTER Y. 

On entering the chamber set apart for him in the con- 
vent, Harold found Haco and Wolnoth already awaiting 
him : and a wound he had received in the last skirmish 
against the Bretons, having broken out afresh on the 
road, allowed him an excuse to spend the rest of the 
evening alone with his kinsmen. 

On conversing with them — now at length, and unre- 
strainedly — Harold saw everything to increase his alarm ; 
for even Wolnoth, when closely pressed, could not but 
give evidence of the unscrupulous astuteness with which, 
despite all the boasted honor of chivalry, the duke’s cha- 
racter was stained. For, indeed, in his excuse it must be 
said, that from the age of eight, exposed to the snares 
of his own kinsmen, and more often saved by craft than 
by strength, William had been taught betimes to justify 
dissimulation, and confound wisdom with guile. Harold 
now bitterly recalled the parting words of Edward, and 
recognized their justice, though as yet he did not see all 
that they portended. Fevered and disquieted yet more 
by the news from England, and conscious that not only 
the power of his house and the foundations of his aspir- 
ing hopes, but the very weal and safety of the land, were 
daily imperilled by his continued absence, a vague and 
unspeakable terror for the first time in his life preyed on 


HAROLD. 


81 


his bold heart -r— a terror like that of superstition; for, 
like superstition, it was of the Unknown ; there was 
everything to shun, yet no substance to grapple with. 
He who could have smiled at the brief pangs of death, 
shrunk from the thought of the perpetual prison ; he, 
whose spirit rose elastic to every storm of life, and exulted 
in the air of action, stood appalled at the fear of blind- 
ness ; — blindness in the midst of a career so grand ; — 
blindness in the midst of his pathway to a throne ; — 
blindness, that curse which palsies the strong and enslaves 
the free, and leaves the whole man defenceless ; — defence- 
less in an Age of Iron. 

What, too, were those mysterious points on which he 
was to satisfy the duke ? He sounded his young kins- 
men ; but Wolnoth evidently knew nothing ; Haco’s eye 
showed intelligence, but by his looks and gestures he 
seemed to signify that what he knew he would only dis- 
close to Harold. Fatigued, not more with his emotions 
than with that exertion to conceal them, so peculiar to 
the English character, (proud virtue of manhood so little 
appreciated, and so rarely understood !) he at length 
kissed Wolnoth, and dismissed him, yawning, to his rest. 
Haco, lingering, closed the door, and looked long and 
mournfully at the earl. 

“Hoble kinsman,” said the young son of Sweyn, “I 
foresaw from the first, that, as our fate will be thine ; 
only round thee will be wall and fosse ; unless, indeed, 
thou wilt lay aside thine own nature ; — it will give thee 
no armor here — and assume that which- ” 


88 


HAROLD. 


41 Ho 1 ” interrupted the earl, shaking with repressed 
passion, “ I see already all the foul fraud and treason to 
guest and noble that surround me ! But if the duke dare 
such shame, he shall do so in the eyes of day. I will 
hail the first boat I see on his river, or his sea-coast ; 
and woe to those who lay hand on this arm to detain 
me 1 ” 

Haco lifted his ominous eyes to Harold’s ; and there 
was something in their cold and unimpassioned expres- 
sion which seemed to repel all enthusiasm, and to deaden 
all courage. 

“ Harold,” said he, “ if but for one such moment thou 
obeyest the impulse of thy manly pride, or thy just re- 
sentment, thou art lost for ever ; one show of violence, 
one word of affront, and thou givest the duke the excuse 
he thirsts for. Escape ! It is impossible. For the last 
five years, I have pondered night and day the means of 
flight ; for I deem that my hostageship, by right, is long 
since over ; and no means have I seen or found. Spies 
dog my every step, as spies, no doubt, dog thine.” 

“ Ha ! it is true,” said Harold ; “ never once have I 
wandered three paces from the camp or the troop, but, 
under some pretext, I have been followed by knight or 
courtier. God and our Lady help me, if but for Eng- 
land’s sake ! But what counsellest thou ? Boy, teach 

me ; thou hast been reared in this air of wile to me it 

is strange, and I am as a wild beast encompassed by a 
circle of fire.” 

“ Then,” answered Haco, “ meet craft by craft, smile 


HAROLD. 


89 


by smile. Feel that thou art under compulsion, and act, 
— as the Church itself pardons men for acting so com- 
pelled. ” 

Harold started, and the blush spread red over his 
cheeks. 

Haco continued. 

“ Once in prison, and thou art lost evermore to the 
sight of men. William would not then dare to release 
thee — unless, indeed, he first rendered thee powerless to 
avenge. Though I will not malign him, and say that he 
himself is capable of secret murder, yet he has ever those 
about him who are. He drops in his wrath some hasty 
word ; it is seized by ready and ruthless tools. The great 
Count of Bretagne was in his way ; William feared him 
as he fears thee ; and in his own court, and amongst his 
own men, the great Count of Bretagne died by poison. 
For thy doom, open or secret, William, however, could 
find ample excuse. ” 

“How, boy? What charge can the Norman bring 
against a free Englishman ? ” 

“ His kinsman Alfred,” answered Haco, “ was blinded, 
tortured, and murdered. And in the court of Rouen, 
they say these deeds were done by Godwin, thy father. 
The Normans who escorted Alfred were decimated in 
cold blood ; again, they say Godwin thy father slaughtered 
them.” 

“ It is hell’s own lie 1” cried Harold, “and so have I 
proved already to the duke.” 

“ Proved ? No 1 The lamb does not prove the cause 
8 * 


90 


HAROLD. 


which is prejudged by the wolf. Often and often have 
I heard the Normans speak of those deeds, and cry that 
vengeance yet shall await them. It is but to renew the 
old accusation, to say Godwin’s sudden death was God’s 
proof of his crime, and even Edward himself would for- 
give the duke for thy bloody death. But grant the best : 
grs.pt that the more lenient doom were but the prison ; 
grant that Edward and the English invaded Normandy 
to enforce thy freedom ; — knowest thou what William 
hath ere now done with hostages ? He hath put them 
in the van of his army, and seared out their eyes in the 
sight of both hosts. Deemest thou he would be more 
gentle to us and to thee ? Such are thy dangers. Be 
bold and frank, — and thou canst not escape them; be 
wary and wise, promise and feign, — and they are baffled : 
cover thy lion heart with the fox’s hide until thou art 
free from the toils.” 

“ Leave me, leave me,” said Harold, hastily. “ Yet, 
hold. Thou didst seem to understand me when I hinted 
of — in a word, what is the object William would gain 
from me ? ” 

Haco looked round; again went to the door — r again 
opened and closed it— approached, and whispered, “The 
crown of England!” 

The earl bounded, as if shot to the heart ; then, again 
he cried, “Leave me. I must be alone — alone now. 
“ Go ! go ! ” 


HAROLD. 


91 


CHAPTER YI. 

Only in solitude could that strong man give way to 
his emotions ; and at first they rushed forth so confused 
and stormy, so hurtling one the other, that hours elapsed 
before he could scarcely face the terrible crisis of his 
position. 

The great historian of Italy has said, that whenever 
the simple and truthful German came amongst the plotting 
and artful Italians, and experienced their duplicity and 
craft., he straightway became more false and subtle than 
the Italians themselves ; to his own countrymen, indeed, 
he continued to retain his characteristic sincerity and 
good faith ; but, once duped and tricked by the southern 
schemers, as if with a fierce scorn, he rejected troth with 
the truthless ; he exulted in mastering them in their own 
wily statesmanship ; and if reproached for insincerity, 
retorted with naive wonder, “Ye Italians, and complain 
of insincerity ! How otherwise can one deal with you — 
how be safe amongst you ? ” 

Somewhat of this revolution of all the natural elements 
of his character took place in Harold’s mind that stormy 
and solitary night. In the transport of his indignation, 
he resolved not doltishly to be thus outwitted to his ruin. 
The perfidious host had deprived himself of that privilege 


95 


HAROLD. 


of Truth — the large and heavenly security of man; — 
it was but a struggle of wit against wit, snare against 
snare. The state and law of warfare had started up in 
the lap of fraudful peace ; and ambush must be met by 
ambush, plot by plot. 

Such was the nature of the self-excuses by which the 
Saxon defended his resolves, and they appeared to him 
more sanctioned by the stake which depended on success 
— a stake which his undying patriotism allowed to be far 
more vast than his individual ambition. Nothing was 
more clear than that if he were detained in a Norman 
prison, at the time of King Edward’s death, the sole 
obstacle to William’s design on the English throne would 
be removed. In the interim, the duke’s intrigues would 
again surround the infirm king with Norman influences ; 
and in the absence both of any legitimate heir to the 
throne capable of commanding the trust of the people, 
and of his own preponderating ascendency both in the 
Witan and the armed militia of the nation, what could 
arrest the designs of the grasping duke ? Thus his own 
liberty was indissolubly connected with that of his 
country ; — and for that great end, the safety of England, 
all means grew holy. 

When the next morning he joined the cavalcade, it 
was only by his extreme paleness that the struggle and 
agony of the past night could be traced, and he answered 
with correspondent cheerfulness William’s cordial greet- 
ings. 

As they rode together — still accompanied by several 


HAROLD. 


93 


knights, and the discourse was thus general, the features 
of the country suggested the theme of the talk. For, 
now in the heart of Normandy, but in rural districts 
remote from the great towns, nothing could be more 
waste and neglected than the face of the land. Misera- 
ble and sordid to the last degree were the huts of the 
serfs ; and when these last met them on their way, half- 
naked and hunger-worn, there was a wild gleam of hate 
and discontent in their eyes, as they louted low to the 
Norman riders, and heard the bitter and scornful taunts 
with which they were addressed; for the Norman and 
the Frank had more than indifference for the peasants 
of their land ; they literally both despised and abhorred 
them, as of different race from the conquerors. The 
Norman settlement especially was so recent in the land, 
that none of that amalgamation between class and class 
which centuries had created in England, existed there ; 
though in England the theowe was wholly a slave, and 
the ceorl in a political servitude to his lord, yet public 
opinion, more mild than law, preserved the thraldom 
from wanton aggravation ; and slavery was felt to be 
wrong and unchristian. The Saxon Church — not the 
less, perhaps, for its very ignorance — sympathized more 
with the subject population, and was more associated 
with it than the comparatively learned and haughty 
ecclesiastics of the continent, who held aloof from the 
unpolished vulgar. The Saxon Church invariably set 
the example of freeing the theowe and emancipating the 
ceorl, and taught that such acts were to the salvation 


94 


H AEOLD. 


of the soul. The rude and homely manner in which the 
greater part of the Saxon thegns lived — dependent solely 
for their subsistence on their herds and agricultural pro- 
duce, and therefore on the labor of their peasants — not 
only made the distinctions of rank less harsh and visible, 
but rendered it the interest of the lords to feed and clothe 
well their dependants. All our records of the customs 
of the Saxons prove the ample sustenance given to the 
poor, and a general care for their lives and rights, which, 
compared with the Frank laws, may be called enlightened 
and humane. And above all, the lowest serf ever had 
the great hope both of freedom and of promotion ; but 
the beast of the field was holier in the eyes of the Nor- 
man than the wretched villein.* We have likened the 


* See Mr. Wright’s very interesting article on the “ Condition of 
the English Peasantry,” &c., Archaeologia, vol. xxx. pp. 205-244. 
I must, however, observe, that one very important fact seems to 
have been generally overlooked by all inquirers, or, at least, not 
sufficiently enforced, viz., that it was the Norman’s contempt for 
the general mass of the subject population, which, more perhaps 
than any other cause, broke up positive slavery in England. Thus 
the Norman very soon lost sight of that distinction the Anglo- 
Saxon had made between the agricultural ceorl and the theowe, 
». e., between the serf of the soil and the personal slave. Hence 
these classes became fused in each other, and were gradually emnn • 
cipated by the same circumstances. This, be it remarked, could 
never have* taken place under the Anglo-Saxon laws, which kept 
constantly feeding the class of slaves by adding to it convicted 
felons and their children. The subject population became too 
necessary to the Norman barons, in their feuds with each other, or 
their king, to be long oppressed ; and, in the time of Froissart, 
that worthy chronicler ascribes the insolence, or high spirit of U 
menu peuple to their grand aise, et abondance de biens. 


HAROLD. 


95 


Norman tc the Spartan, and, most of all, he was like 
him in his scorn of the helot. 

Thus embruted and degraded, deriving little from reli- 
gion itself, except its terrors, the general habits of the 
peasants on the continent of France were against the very 
basis of Christianity — marriage. They lived together for 
the most part without that tie, and hence the common 
name, with which they were called by their masters, lay 
and clerical, was the coarsest word contempt can apply 
to the sons of women. 

“The hounds glare at us,” said Odo, as a drove of 
these miserable serfs passed along. “ They need ever the 
lash to teach them to know the master. Are they thus 
mutinous and surly in England, Lord Harold?” 

“ No : but there our meanest theowes are not seen so 
clad, nor housed in such hovels,” said the earl. 

“And is it really true that a villein with you can rise 
to be a noble?” 

“ Of at least yearly occurrence. Perhaps the fore- 
fathers of one-fourth of our Anglo-Saxon tliegns held 
the plough, or followed some craft mechanical.” 

Duke William politically checked Odo’s answer, and 
said mildly, — 

“Every land its own laws : and by them alone should 
it be governed by a virtuous and wise ruler. But, noblt 
Harold, I grieve that you should thus note the sore point 
in my realm. I grant that the condition of the peasants 
and the culture of the land need reform. But in my 
childhood, there was a fierce outbreak of rebellion among 


HAROLD. 


96 

the villeins, needing bloody example to check, and the 
memories of wrath between lord and villein must sleep 
before' we can do justice between them, as please St. Pe- 
ter, and by Lanfranc’s aid, we hope to do. Meanwhile, 
one great portion of our villeinage in our larger towns 
we have much mitigated. For trade and commerce are 
the strength of rising states ; and if our fields are barren, 
our streets are prosperous.” 

Harold bowed, and rode musingly on. That civiliza- 
tion he had so much admired bounded itself to the noble 
class, and, at farthest, to the circle of the duke’s commer- 
cial policy. Beyond it, on the outskirts of humanity, lay 
the mass of the people. And here, no comparison in 
favor of the latter could be found between English and 
Norman civilization. 

The towers of Bayeux rose dim in the distance, when 
William proposed a halt in a pleasant spot by the side 
of a small stream, overshadowed by oak and beech. A 
tent for himself and Harold was pitched in haste, and 
after an abstemious refreshment, the duke, taking Harold’s 
arm, led him away from the train along the margin of 
the murmuring stream. 

They were soon in a remote, pastoral, primitive spot, a 
spot like those which the old menestrels loved to describe, 
and in which some pious hermit might, pleased, have fixed 
his solitary home. 

Halting where a mossy bank jutted over the water, 
William motioned to his companion to seat himself, and 
reclining at his side, abstractedly took the pebbles from 


HAROLD. 


97 


w le margin and dropped them into the stream. They fell 
to the bottom with a hollow sound ; the circle they made 
on the surface widened, and was lost ; and the wave 
rushed and murmured on, disdainful. 

“Harold,” said the duke at last, “thou hast thought, 
1 /ear, that I have trifled with thy impatience to return. 
Bat there is on my mind a matter of great moment to 
tl.ee and to me, and it must out, before thou canst depart. 
On this very spot where we now sit, sate in early youth, 
Edward thy king, and William thy host. Soothed by 
tli , <i loneliness of the place, and the music of the bell from 
th*i church-tower, rising pale through yonder glade, Ed- 
wurd spoke of his desire for the monastic life, and of his 
content with his exile in the Norman land. Few then 
w»*re the hopes that he should ever attain the throne of 
Alfred. I, more martial, and ardent for him as myself, 
combated the thought of the convent, and promised, that, 
if ever occasion meet arrived, and he needed the Nor- 
man help, I would, with arm and heart, do a chief’s best 
to win him his lawful crown. Heedest thou me, dear 
Harold?” 

“Ay, my host, with heart as with ear.” 

“And Edward then, pressing my hand as I now press 
thine, while answering gratefully, promised, that if he 
did, contrary to all human foresight, gain his heritage, 
he, in case I survived him, would bequeath that heritage 
to me. Thy hand withdraws itself from mine.” 

“But from surprise. Duke William, proceed.” 

“ Now,” resumed William, “ when thy kinsmen were 
ri. — 9 


98 


HAROLD. 


sent to me as hostages for the most powerful House in 
England — the only one that could thwart the desire of 
my cousin — I naturally deemed this a corroboration of 
his promise, and an earnest of his continued designs ; 
and in this I was reassured by the prelate, Robert arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, who knew the most secret con- 
science of your king. Wherefore my pertinacity in 
retaining those hostages ; wherefore my disregard to 
Edward’s mere remonstrances, which I, not unnaturally, 
conceived to be but his meek concessions to the urgent 
demands of thyself and House. Since then, Fortune or 
Providence hath favored the promise of the king, and 
my just expectations founded thereon. For one moment 
it seemed indeed that Edward regretted or reconsidered 
the pledge of our youth. He sent for his kinsman, the 
Atheling, natural heir to the throne. But the poor prince 
died. The son, a mere child, if I am rightly informed, 
the laws of thy land will set aside, should Edward die 
ere the- child grow a man; and, moreover, I am assured, 
that the young Edgar hath no power of mind or intellect 
to wield so weighty a sceptre as that of England. Your 
king, also, even since your absence, hath had severe 
visitings of sickness, and ere another year his new abbey 
may hold his tomb.” 

William here paused : again dropped the pebbles into 
the stream, and glanced furtively on the unrevealing face 
of the earl. He resumed — 

“ Thy brother Tostig, as so nearly allied to my House, 
would, I am advised, back my claims; and wert thou 


HAROLD. 


99 


absent from England, Tostig, I conceive, would be in thy 
place as the head of the great party of Godwin. But to 
prove how little I care for thy brother’s aid compared 
with thine, and how implicitly I count on thee, I have 
openly told thee what a wilier plotter would have con- 
cealed — viz. the danger to which thy brother is exposed 
in his own earldom. To th.e point, then, I pass at once. 

I might, as my ransomed captive, detain thee here, until, 
without thee, I had won my English throne, and I know 
that thou alone couldst obstruct my just claims, or inter- 
fere with the king’s will, by which that appanage will be 
left to me. Nevertheless, I unbosom myself to thee, and 
would owe my crown solely to thine aid. I pass on to 
treat with thee, dear Harold, not as lord with vassal, 
but as prince with prince. On thy part, thou shalt hold 
for me the castle of Dover, to yield to my fleet when the 
hour comes ; thou shalt aid me in peace, and through thy 
National Witan, to succeed to Edward, by whose laws I 
will reign in all things conformably with the English 
rites, habits, and decrees. A stronger king to guard 
England from the Dane, and a more practised head to 
improve her prosperity, I am vain eno J to say thou wilt 
not find in Christendom. On my part, I offer to thee my 
fairest daughter, Adeliza, to whom thou shalt be straight- 
way betrothed : thine own young un wedded sister, Thyra, 
thou shalt give to one of my greatest barons : all the 
lands, dignities, and possessions thou boldest now, thou 
shalt still retain ; and if, as I suspect, thy brother Tostig 
cannot keep his vast principality north the Humber, it 


100 


HAROLD. 


shall pass to thee. Whatever else thou canst demand in 
guarantee of my love and gratitude, or so to confirm thy 
power that thou shalt rule over thy countships as free 
and as powerful as the great Counts of Provence or 
Anjou reign in France over theirs, subject only to the 
mere form of holding in fief to the Suzerain, as I, stormy 
subject, hold Normandy under Philip of France, — shall 
be given to thee. In truth, there will be two kings in 
England, though in name but one. And far from losing 
by the death of Edward, thou shalt gain by the subjec- 
tion of every meaner rival, and the cordial love of thy 
grateful William. — Splendor of God, earl, thou keepest 
me long for thine answer ! ” 

“What thou offerest,” said the earl, fortifying himself 
with the resolution of the previous night, and compress- 
ing his lips, livid with rage, “ is beyond my deserts, and 
all that the greatest chief under royalty could desire. 
But England is not Edward’s to leave, nor mine to give ; 
its throne rests with the Witan.” 

“And the Witan rests with thee,” exclaimed William, 
sharply. “ I ask but for possibilities, man ; I ask but all 
thine influence on my behalf ; and if it be less than I 
deem, mine is the loss. What dost thou resign ? I will 
not presume to menace thee ; but thou wouldst, indeed, 
despise my folly, if now, knowing my designs, I let thee 
forth — not to aid but betray them. I know thou lovest 
England, so do I. Thou deemest me a foreigner; true, 
but the Norman and Dane are of precisely the same 
origin. Thou, of the race of Canute, knowest how 


HAROLD. 


xOl 


popular was the reign of that king. Why should Wil- 
Ham’s be less so ? Canute had no right whatsoever, save 
that of the sword. My right will be kinship to Edward 
— Edward’s wish in my favor — the consent through thee 
of the Witan — the absence of all other worthy heir — 
my wife’s clear descent from Alfred, which, in my 
children, restores the Saxon line, through its purest and 
noblest ancestry, to the throne. Think over all this, and 
then wilt thou tell me that I merit not this crown ? ” 
Harold yet paused, and the fiery duke resumed — 

“ Are the terms I give not tempting eno’ to my cap- 
tive — to the son of the great Godwin, who, no doubt 
falsely, but still by the popular voice of all Europe, had 
power of life and death over my cousin Alfred and my 
Norman knights ? or dost thou thyself covet the English 
crown ; and is it to a rival that I have opened my heart ? ” 
11 Nay,” said Harold in the crowning effort of his new 
and fatal lesson in simulation. “ Thou hast convinced 
me, Duke William ; let it be as thou sayest.” 

The duke gave way to his joy by a loud exclamation, 
and then recapitulated the articles of the engagement, to 
which Harold simply bowed his head. Amicably, then, 
the duke embraced the earl, and the two returned to- 
wards the tent. 

While the steeds were brought forth, William took the 
opportunity to draw Odo apart; and, after a short 
whispered conference, the prelate hastened to his barb, 
and spurred fast to Bayeux in advance of the party. All 
that day, and all that night, and all the next morn till 
9 * 


102 


HAROLD. 


noon, 'jouriers and riders went abroad, north and soncb 
east and west, to all the more famous abbeys and churches 
in Normandy, and holy and awful was the spoil with 
which they returned for the ceremony of the next day. 


CHAPTER VII. 

The stately mirth of the evening banquet seemed to 
Harold as the malign revel of some demoniac orgie. He 
thought he read in every face the exultation over the sale 
of England. Every light laugh in the proverbial ease 
of the social Normans rang on his ear like the joy of a 
ghastly Sabbat. All his senses preternaturally sharpened 
to that magnetic keenness in which we less hear and see 
than conceive and divine, the lowest murmur William 
breathed in the ear of Odo, boomed clear to his own ; 
the slightest interchange of glance between some dark- 
browed priest, and large-breasted warrior, flashed upon 
his vision. The irritation of his recent and neglected 
wound, combined with his mental excitement to quicken, 
yet to confuse his faculties. Body and soul were fevered. 
He floated, as it were, between a delirium and a dream. 

Late in the evening he was led into the chamber where 
the duchess sat alone with Adeliza and her second son 
William — a boy who had the red hair and florid hues of 
the ancestral Dane, but was not without a certain bold 
and strange kind of beauty, and who, even in childhood, 


HAROLD. 


103 


all covered with broidery and gems, betrayed the passion 
for that extravagant and fantastic foppery for which 
William, the red king, to the scandal of Church and pul- 
pit, exchanged the decorous pomp of his father’s genera- 
tion. A formal presentation of Harold to the little maid 
was followed by a brief ceremony of words, which con- 
veyed what, to the scornful sense of the earl, seemed the 
mockery of betrothal between infant and bearded man. 
Glozing congratulations buzzed around him ; then there 
was a flash of lights on his dizzy eyes, he found himself 
moving through a corridor between Odo and William. 
He was in his room hung with arras and strewed with 
rushes ; before him, in niches, various images of the Vir- 
gin, the Archangel Michael, St. Stephen, St. Peter, St. 
John, St. Valery; and from the bells in the monastic 
edifice hard by tolled the third watch* of the night — the 
narrow casement was out of reach, high in the massive 
wall, and the starlight was darkened by the great church- 
tower. Harold longed for air. All his earldom had he 
given at that moment, to feel the cold blast of his native 
skies moaning round his Saxon wolds. He opened his 
door, and looked forth. A lanthorn swung on high from 
the groined roof of the corridor. By the lanthorn stood 
a tall sentry in arms, and its gleam fell red upon an iron 
grate that jealously barred the egress. The earl closed 
the door, and sat down on his bed, covering his face with 
his clenched hand. The veins throbbed in every pulse, 
his own touch seemed to him like fire. The prophecies 


* Twelve o’clock. 


104 


H AftOLL. 


of Hilda on the fatal night by the bantastein, which had 
decided him to reject the prayer of Gurth, the fears of 
Edith, and the cautions of Edward, came back to him, 
dark, haunting, and over-masteringly. They rose between 
him and his sober sense, whenever he sought to re-collect 
his thoughts, now to madden him with the sense of his 
folly in belief, now to divert his mind from the perilous 
present to the triumphant future they foretold ; and of 
all the varying chaunts of the Yala, ever two lines seemed 
to burn into his memory, and to knell upon his ear as if 
they contained the counsel they ordained him to pursue : 

“ Guile by guile oppose, and never 
Crown and brow shall Force dissever ! ” 

So there he sat, locked and rigid, not reclining, not dis- 
robing, till in that posture a haggard, troubled, fitful 
sleep came over him ; nor did he wake till the hour of 
prime,* when ringing bells and trampling feet, and the 
hum of prayer from the neighboring chapel, roused him 
into waking yet more troubled, and well-nigh as dreamy. 
But now Godrith and Haco entered the room, and the 
former inquired with some surprise in his tone, if he had 
arranged with the duke to depart that day ; “ for,” said 
he, “ the duke’s hors-thegn has just been with me, to say 
that the duke himself, and a stately retinue, are to accom- 
pany you this evening towards Harfleur, where a ship 
will be in readiness for our transport ; and I know that 
the chamberlain (a courteous and pleasant man) is going 
round to my fellow-thegns in your train, with gifts of 
hawks, and chains, and broidered palls.” 


* Six, A. M. 


HAROLD. 


105 


“It is so,” said Haco, in answer to Harold’s brighten* 
!ng and appealing eye. 

“ Go then, at once, Godrith,” exclaimed! the earl, 
bounding to his feet, “ have all in order to part at the 
first break of the trump. Never, I ween, did trump sound 
so cheerily as the blast that shall announce our return to 
England. Haste — haste ! ” 

As Godrith, pleased in the earl’s pleasure, though him- 
self already much fascinated by the honors he had re- 
ceived, and the splendor he had witnessed, withdrew, Haco 
said, “ Thou hast taken my counsel, noble kinsman ? ” 

“ Question me not, Haco 1 Out of my memory, all that 
hath passed here ! ” 

“Not yet,” said Haco, with that gloomy and intense 
seriousness of voice and aspect, which was so at variance 
with his years, and which impressed all he said with an 
indescribable authority. “Not yet; for even while the 
chamberlain went his round with the parting gifts, I, 
standing in the angle of the wall in the yard, heard the 
duke’s deep whisper to Roger Bigod, who has the guard 
of the keape, * Have the men all armed at noon in the 
passage below the council-hall, to mount at the stamp of 
my foot; and if then I give thee a prisoner — wonder 
not, but lodge him — ’ The duke paused; and Bigod 
said, ‘ Where, my liege ? ’ And the duke answered, 
fiercely, ‘Where? why, where but in the Tournoir ? — 
where, but in the cell in which Malvoisin rotted out his 
last hour ? ’ Not yet, then, let the memory of Norman 

wile pass away ; let the lip guard the freedom still.” 

9* 


106 


HAROLD. 


All the bright native soul that before Haco spoke had 
dawned gradually back on the earl’s fair face, now closed 
itself up, as the leaves of a poisoned flower ; and the 
pupil of the eye receding, left to the orb that secret and 
strange expression which had baffled all readers of the 
heart in the look of his impenetrable father. 

“ Guile by guile oppose ! ” he muttered vaguely ; then 
started, clenched his hand, and smiled. 

In a few moments, more than the usual levee of Nor- 
man nobles thronged into the room ; and what with the 
wonted order of the morning, in the repast, the church 
service of tierce, and a ceremonial visit to Matilda, who 
confirmed the intelligence that all was in preparation for 
his departure, and charged him with gifts of her own 
needlework to his sister the queen, and various messages 
of gracious nature, the time waxed late into noon with- 
out his having yet seen either William or Odo. 

He was still with Matilda, when the Lords Fitzosborne 
and Raoul de Tancarville entered in full robes of state, 
and with countenances unusually composed and grave, 
and prayed the earl to accompany them into the duke’s 
presence. 

Harold obeyed in silence, not unprepared for covert 
danger, by the formality of the counts, as by the warn- 
ings of Haco ; but, indeed, undivining the solemnity of 
the appointed snare. On entering the lofty hall, he 
beheld William seated in state ; his sword of office in his 
hand, his ducal robe on his imposing form, and with that 
peculiarly erect air of the head which he assumed upon 


HAROLD. 


107 


all ceremonial occasions.* Behind him stood Odo of 
Bajeux, in aube and pallium ; some score of the duke’s 
greatest vassals ; and, at a little distance from the throne- 
chair, was what seemed a table, or vast chest, covered all 
over with cloth of gold. 

Small time for wonder or self-collection did the duke 
give the Saxon. 

“Approach, Harold,” said he, in the full tones of that 
voice, so singularly effective in command ; “ approach, 
and without fear, as without regret. Before the members 
of this noble assembly — all witnesses of thy faith, and 
all guarantees of mine — I summon thee to confirm by 
oath the promises thou mad’st me yesterday ; namely, to 
aid me to obtain the kingdom of England on the death 
of King Edward, my cousin ; to marry my daughter 
Adeliza ; and to send thy sister hither, that I may wed 
her, as we agreed, to one of my worthiest and prowest 
counts. Advance thou, Odo, my brother, and repeat to 
the noble earl the Norman form by which he will take 
the oath.” 

Then Odo stood forth by that mysterious receptacle 
covered with the cloth of gold, and said briefly : “ Thou 

* A celebrated antiquary, in his treatise in the “Archseologia,” 
on the authenticity of the Bayeux tapestry, .very justly invites 
attention to the rude attempt of the artist to preserve individuality 
in his portraits ; and especially to the singularly erect bearing of 
the duke, by which he is at once recognized wherever he is intro- 
duced. Less pains are taken with the portrait of Harold; but 
even in that a certain elegance of proportion, and length of limb, 
as well as height of stature, are generally preserved. 


108 


HAROLD. 


wilt swear, as far as is in thy power, to tulfil thy agree* 
ment with William, duke of the Normans, if thou live, 
and God aid thee ; and in witness of that oath thou wilt 
lay thy hand upon the reliquaire,” pointing to a small 
box that lay on tho cloth of gold. 

All this was so sudden — all flashed so rapidly upon 
the earl, whose natural intellect, however great, was, as 
we have often seen, more deliberate than prompt — so 
thoroughly was the bold heart, which no siege could have 
sapped, taken by surprise and guile — so paramount 
through all the whirl and tumult of his mind, rose the 
thought of England irrevocably lost, if he who alone 
could save her was in the Norman dungeons — so darkly 
did all Haco’s fears, and his own just suspicions, quell 
and master him, that mechanically, dizzily, dreamily, he 
laid his hand on the reliquaire, and repeated, with 
automaton lips — 

“ If I live, and if God aid me to it 1 ” 

Then all the assembly repeated solemnly — # 

“ God aid him ! ” 

And suddenly, at a sign from William, Odo and Raoul 
de Tancarville raised the gold cloth, and the duke’s voice 
bade Harold look below. 

As when man descends from the gilded sepulchre to 
the loathsome charnel, so at the lifting of that cloth, all 
the dread ghastliness of death was revealed. There, 
from abbey and from church, from cyst and from shrine, 
had been collected all the relics of human nothingness in 
which superstition adored the mementos of saints divine ; 


HAROLD. 


109 


there lay, pell-mell and huddled, skeleton and mummy — 
the dry dark skin, the white gleaming bones of the dead, 
mockingly cased in gold, and decked with rubies; there, 
grim fingers protruded through the- hideous chaos, and 
pointed towards the living man ensnared ; there, the skull 
grinned scoff under the holy mitre ; — and suddenly rushed 
back, luminous and searing, upon Harold’s memory, the 
dream long forgotten, or but dimly remembered in the 
healthful business of life — the guile and the wirble of 
the dead men’s bones. 

“At that sight,” say the Norman chronicles, “the earl 
shnddered and trembled.” 

“Awful, indeed, thine oath, and natural thine emotion,” 
said the duke; “for in that cyst are all those relics 
which religion deems the holiest in our land. The dead 
have heard thine oath, and the saints even now record it 
in the halls of heaven ! Cover again the holy bones 1 ” 


II. — 10 


BOOK TENTH. 


THE SACRIFICE ON THE ALTAR. 


CHAPTER I. 

The good Bishop Aired, now raised to the See of York, 
had been summoned from his cathedral seat by Edward, 
who had indeed undergone a severe illness, during the 
absence of Harold ; and that illness had been both pre- 
ceded and followed by mystical presentiments of the evil 
days that were to fall on England after his death. He 
had therefore sent for the best and the holiest prelate in 
his realm, to advise and counsel with. 

The bishop had returned to his lodgings in London 
(which was in a Benedictine Abbey, not far from the 
Aldgate) late one evening, from visiting the king at his 
rural palace of Havering ; and he was seated alone in 
his cell, musing over an interview with Edward, which 
had evidently much disturbed him, when the door was 
abruptly thrown open, and pushing aside in haste the 
monk, who was about formally to announce him, a man 
so travel-stained in garb, and of a mien so disordeied, 

( 110 ) 


HAROLD. 


Ill 


rushed in, that Aired gazed at first as on a stranger, and 
not till the intruder spoke did he recognize Harold the 
Earl. Even then, so wild was the earl’s eye, so dark his 
brow, and so livid his cheek, that it rather seemed the 
ghost of the man than the man himself. Closing the 
door oil the monk, the earl stood a moment on the 
threshold, with a breast heaving with emotions which he 
sought in vain to master ; and, as if resigning the effort, 
he sprang forward, clasped the prelate’s knees, bowed 
his head on his lap, and sobbed aloud. The good bishop, 
who had known all the sons of Godwin from their infancy, 
and to whom Harold was as dear as his own child, fold- 
ing his hands over the earl’s head, soothingly murmured 
a benediction. 

“ Ho, no,” cried the earl, starting to his feet, and toss- 
ing the dishevelled hair from his eyes, “ Bless me not yet ! 
Hear my tale first, and then say what comfort, what re- 
fuge, thy Church can bestow 1 ” 

Hurriedly then the earl poured forth the dark story, 
already known to the reader, — the prison at Belrem, the 
detention at William’s court, the fears, the snares, the 
discourse by the river-side, the oath over the relics. This 
told, he continued : “ I found myself in the open air, and 
knew not, till the light of the sun smote me, what might 
have passed into my soul. I was, before, as a corpse 
which a witch raises from the dead, endows with a spirit 
not its own — passive to her hand — life-like, not living. 
Then, then it was as if a demon had passed from my 
body, laughing scorn at the foul things it had made the 


112 


HAROLD. 


clay do. Oh, father, father ! is there not absolution from 
this oath, — an oath I dare not keep ? rather perjure my- 
self than betray my land ! ” 

The prelate’s face was as pale as Harold’s, and it was 
some moments before he could reply. 

“ The Church can loose and unloose — such is its dele- 
gated authority. But speak on ; what saidst thou at the 
last to William?” 

“ I know not, remember not — aught save these words. 
‘ Now, then, give me those for whom I placed myself in 
thy power ; let me restore Haco to his father-land, and 
Wolnoth to his mother’s kiss, and wend home my way.’ 
And, saints in heaven ! what was the answer of this 
caitiff Norman, with his glittering eye and venomed 
smile ? ‘ Haco thou shalt have, for he is an orphan, and 
an uncle’s love is not so hot as to burn from a distance ; 
but Wolnoth, thy mother’s son, must stay with me as a 
hostage for thine own faith. Godwin’s hostages are re- 
leased ; Harold’s hostage I retain : it is but a form, yet 
these forms are the bonds of princes.’ 

“ I looked at him, and his eye quailed. And I said, 
‘That is not in the compact.’ And William answered, 
‘No, but it is the seal of it.’ Then I turned from the 
duke, and I called my brother to my side, and I said, 
‘ Over the seas have I come for thee. Mount thy steed 
and ride by my side, for I will not leave the land without 
thee.’ And Wolnoth answered, ‘ Nay, Duke William tells 
me that he hath made treaties with thee, for which I am 
still to be the hostage j and Normandy has grown my 


HAROLD. 


ns 


home, and I love William as my lord.’ Hot words fol- 
lowed, and Wolnoth, chafed, refused entreaty and com- 
mand, and suffered me to see that his heart was not with 
England 1 0, mother, mother, how shall I meet thine 

eye ! So I returned with Haco. The moment I set foot 
on my native England, that moment her form seemed to 
rise from the tall cliffs, her voice to speak in the winds ! 
All the glamour by which I had been bound, forsook me ; 
and I sprang forward in scorn, above the fear of the dead 
men’s bones. Miserable over-craft of the snarer 1 Had 
my simple word alone bound me, or that word been rati- 
fied after slow and deliberate thought, by the ordinary 
oaths that appeal to God, far stronger the bond upon my 
soul than the mean surprise, the covert tricks, the insult 
and the mocking fraud. But as I rode on, the oath pur- 
sued me — pale spectres mounted behind me on my steed, 
ghastly fingers pointed from the welkin ; and then sud- 
denly, O my father — I who, sincere in my simple faith, 
had, as thou knowest too well, never bowed submissive 
conscience to priest and Church — then suddenly I felt 
the might of some power, surer guide than that haughty 
conscience which had so in the hour of need betrayed 
me 1 Then I recognized that supreme tribunal, that me- 
diator between Heaven and man, to which I might come 
with the dire secret of my soul, and say, as I say now, on 
my bended knee, O father — father — bid me die, or ab- 
solve me from my oath ! ” 

Then Aired rose erect, and replied, “ Did I need sub- 
terfuge, O son, I would say, that William himself hath 
10 * 2g 


/ 


111 HAROLD. 

released thy bond, in detaining the hostage against the 
spirit of the guilty compact ; that in the very words them- 
selves of the oath, lies the release — 1 If God aid thee.' 
God aids no child to parricide — and thou art England’s 
child I But all school casuistry is here a meanness. Plain 
is the law, that oaths extorted by compulsion, through 
fraud and in fear, the Church hath the right to loose : 
plainer still the law of God and of man, that an oath to 
commit crime it is a deadlier sin to keep than to forfeit. 
Wherefore, not absolving thee from the misdeed of a vow 
that, if trusting more to God’s providence and less to 
man’s vain strength and dim wit, thou wouldst never have 
uttered even for England’s sake — leaving her to the 
angels ; — not, I say, absolving thee from that sin, but 
pausing yet to decide what penance and atonement to fix 
to its committal, I do in the name of the Power whose 
priest I am, forbid thee to fulfil the oath ; I do release 
and absolve thee from all obligation thereto. And if in 
this I exceed my authority as Romish priest, I do but 
accomplish my duties as living man. To these grey hairs 
I take the sponsorship. Before this holy cross, kneel, O 
my son, with me, and pray that a life of truth and virtue 
may atone the madness of an hour.” 

So by the crucifix knelt the warrior and the priest. 


i 


HAROLD. 


115 


CHAPTER II. 

All other thought had given way to Harold’s impetu- 
ous yearning to throw himself upon the Church, to hear 
his doom from the purest and wisest of its Saxon preach- 
ers. Had the prelate deemed his vow irrefragable, he 
would have died the Roman’s death, rather than live the 
traitor’s life ; and strange indeed was the revolution 
created in this man’s character, that he, “so self-depend- 
ent,” he who had hitherto deemed himself his sole judge 
below of cause and action, now felt the whole life of his 
life committed to the word of a cloistered shaveling. All 
other thought had given way to that fiery impulse — home, 
mother, Edith, king, power, policy, ambition ! Till the 
weight was from his soul, he was as an outlaw in his 
native land. But when the next sun rose, and that awful 
burthen was lifted from his heart and his being — when 
his own calm sense, returning, sanctioned the fiat of the 
priest, — when, though with deep shame and rankling re- 
morse at the memory of the vow, he yet felt exonerated, 
not from the guilt of having made, but the deadlier guilt 
of fulfilling it, — all the objects of existence resumed their 
natural interest, softened and chastened, but still vivid in 
the heart restored to humanity. But from that time, 
Harold’s stern philosophy and stoic ethics were shaken 


16 


HAROLD. 


to the dust; re-created, as it were, by the breath of re- 
ligion, he adopted its tenets even after the fashion of his 
age. The secret of his shame, the error of his conscience, 
humbled him. Those unlettered monks whom he had so 
despised, how had he lost the right to stand aloof from 
their control ! how had his wisdom, and his strength, and 
liis courage, met unguarded the hour of temptation ! 

Yes, might the time come, when England could spare 
him from her side ! when he, like Sweyn the outlaw, 
could pass a pilgrim to the Holy Sepulchre, and there, 
as the creed of the age taught, w r in full pardon for the 
single lie of his truthful life, and regain the old peace of 
his stainless conscience ! 

There are sometimes event and season in the life of 
man the hardest and most rational, when he is driven 
perforce to faith the most implicit and submissive ; as the 
storm drives the wings of the petrel over a measureless 
sea, till it falls tame, and rejoicing at refuge, on the sails 
of some lonely ship. Seasons when difficulties, against 
which reason seems stricken into palsy, leave him be- 
wildered in dismay — when darkness, which experience 
cannot pierce, wraps the conscience, as sudden night 
wraps the traveller in the desert — when error entangles 
his feet in its inextricable web — when, still desirous of 
the right, he sees before him but a choice of evil ; and 
the Angel of the Past, with a flaming sword, closes on 
him the gates of the Future. Then, Faith flashes on 
him, with a light from the cloud. Then, he clings to 
Prayer as a drowning wretch to the plank. Then, that 


HAROLD. 


117 


solemn authority which clothes the Priest, as the inter- 
preter between the soul and the Divinity, seizes on the 
heart that trembles with terror and joy ; then, that mys 
terious recognition of Atonement, of sacrifice, of purify- 
ing lustration (mystery which lies hid in the core of all 
religions), smooths the frown on the Past, removes the 
flaming sword from the Future. The Orestes escapes 
from the hounding Furies, and follows the oracle to the 
spot where the cleansing dews shall descend on the ex- 
piated guilt. 

He who hath never known in himself, nor marked in 
another, such strange crisis in human fate, cannot judge 
of the strength and the weakness it bestows. But till he 
can so judge, the spiritual part of all history is to him a 
blank scroll, a sealed volume. He cannot comprehend 
what drove the fierce Heathen, cowering and humbled, 
into the fold of the Church ; what peopled Egypt with 
eremites ; what lined the roads of Europe and Asia with 
pilgrim homicides ; what, in the elder world, while Jove 
yet reigned on Olympus, is couched in the dim traditions 
of the expiation of Apollo, the joy-god, descending into 
Hades ; or why the sinner went blithe and light-hearted 
from the healing lustrations of Eleusis. In all these 
solemn riddles of the Jove world, and the Christ’s, is in- 
volved the imperious necessity that man hath of repent- 
ance and atonement : through their clouds, as a rain- 
bow, shines the covenant that reconciles the God and the 
man. 

Now Life with strong arms plucked the reviving Ha- 


!18 


HAROLD. 


rold to itself. Already the news of his return had spread 
through the city, and his chamber soon swarmed with 
joyous welcomes and anxious friends. But the first con- 
gratulations over, each had tidings, that claimed his in- 
stant attention, to relate. His absence had sufficed to 
loosen half the links of that ill-woven empire. 

All the North was in arms. Northumbria had revolted 
as one man, from the tyrannous cruelty of Tostig ; the 
insurgents had marched upon York ; Tostig had fled in 
dismay, none as yet knew whither. The sons of Algar 
had sallied forth from their Mercian fortresses, and were 
now in the ranks of the Northumbrians, who it was 
rumored had selected Morcar (the elder) in the place of 
Tostig. 

Amidst these disasters, the king’s health was fast de- 
caying : his mind seemed bewildered and distraught ; dark 
ravings of evil portent that had escaped from his lip in 
his mystic reveries and visions, had spread abroad, ban- 
died with all natural exaggerations, from lip to lip. The 
country was in one state of gloomy and vague apprehen- 
sion. 

But all would go well, now Harold the great earl — 
Harold the stout, and the wise, and the loved — had come 
back to his native land 1 

In feeling himself thus necessary to England, — all eyes, 
all hopes, all hearts turned to him, and to him alone, — 
Harold shook the evil memories from his soul, as a lion 
shakes the dews from his mane. His intellect, that seemed 
to have burned dim aud through smoke in scenes unfa- 


HAROLD 


119 


miliar to its exercise, rose at once equal to the occasion. 
His words reassured the most despondent. His orders 
were prompt and decisive. While, to and fro, went forth 
his bodes and his riders, he himself leaped on his horse, 
and rode fast to Havering. 

At length, that sweet and lovely retreat broke on his 
sight, as a bower through the bloom of a garden. This 
was Edward’s favorite abode : he had built it himseif for 
his private devotions, allured by its woody solitudes, and 
the gloom of its copious verdure. Here it was said, that 
once at night, wandering through the silent glades, and 
musing on heaven, the loud song of the nightingales had 
disturbed his devotions; with vexed and impatient soul, 
he had prayed that the music might be stilled ; and since 
then, never more the nightingale was heard in the shades 
of Havering I 

Threading the woodland, melancholy yet glorious with 
the hues of autumn, Harold reached the low and humble 
gate of the timber edifice, all covered with creepers and 
young ivy ; and in a few moments more he stood in the 
presence of the king. 

Edward raised himself with pain from the couch on 
which he was reclined,* beneath a canopy supported by 
carved symbols of the bell-towers of Jerusalem ; and his 
languid face brightened at the sight of Harold. Behind 
the king stood a man with a Danish battle-axe in his 
hand, the captain of the royal house-carles, who, on a 
sign from the king, withdrew. 


Bayeux tapestry. 


120 


HAROLD 


Thou art come back, Harold,” said Edward then, in 
a feeble voice ; and the earl drawing near, was grieved 
and shocked at the alteration of his face. “ Thou art 
come back, to aid this benumbed hand, from which the 
earthly sceptre is about to fall. Hush I for it is so, and 
I rejoice.” Then examining Harold’s features, yet pale 
with recent emotions, and now saddened by sympathy 
with the king, he resumed : — “ Well, man of this world, 
that went forth confiding in thine own strength, and in 
the faith of men of the world like thee, — well, were my 
warnings prophetic, or art thou contented with thy mis- 
sion ? ” 

“Alas I” said Harold, mournfully. “Thy wisdom was 
greater than mine, O king ; and dread the snares laid for 
me and our native land, under pretext of a promise made 
by thee to Count William, that he should reign in Eng- 
land, should he be your survivor.” 

Edward’s face grew troubled and embarrassed. “ Such 
promise,” he said falteringly, “ when I knew not the laws 
of England, nor that a realm could not pass like house 
and hyde, by a man’s single testament, might well escape 
from my thoughts, never too bent upon earthly affairs. 
But I marvel not that my cousin’s mind is more tenacious 
and mundane. And verily, in those vague words, and 
from thy visit, I see the Future dark with fate and crim- 
son with blood.” 

Then Edward’s eyes grew locked and set, staring into 
space ; and even that reverie, though it awed him, relieved 
Harold of mucli disquietude, for he rightly conjectured. 


HAROLD. 


121 


that on waking from it Edward would press him no more 
as to those details and dilemmas of conscience, of which 
he felt that the arch-worshipper of relics was no fitting 
judge. 

When the king, with a heavy sigh, evinced return from 
the world of vision, he stretched forth to Harold his wan, 
transparent hand, and said : — 

“ Thou seest the ring on this finger ; it comes to me 
from above, a merciful token to prepare my soul for 
death. Perchance thou mayest have heard that once an 
aged pilgrim stopped me on my way from God’s house, 
and asked for alms — and I, having nought else on my 
person to bestow, drew from my finger a ring, and gave 
it to him, and the old man went his way, blessing me.” 

“I mind me well of thy gentle charity,” said the earl; 
“for the pilgrim bruited it abroad as be passed, and 
much talk was there of it.” 

The king smiled faintly. “Now this was years ago. 
It so chanced this year, that certain Englishers, on their 
way from the Holy Land, fell in with two pilgrims — and 
these last questioned them much of me. And one, with 
face venerable and benign, drew forth a ring and said, 
‘When thou reachest England, give thou this to the 
king’s own hand, and say, by this token, that on Twelfth- 
Day Eve he shall be with me. For what he gave to me, 
will I prepare recompense without bound ; and already 
the saints deck for the new-comer the halls where the 
worm never gnaws and the moth never frets.’ ‘And 

who,’ asked my subjects amazed, ‘ who shall we say speak- 
II. — 11 


*22 


HAROLD. 


eth thus to us ? ” And the pilgrim answered, ‘ He oh 
whose breast leaned the Son of God, and my name is 
John ! ’* Wherewith the apparition vanished. This is 
the ring I gave to the pilgrim ; on the fourteenth night 
from thy parting, miraculously returned to me. Where- 
fore, Harold, my time here is brief, and I rejoice that thy 
coining delivers me up from the cares of state to the pre- 
paration of my soul for the joyous day.” 

Harold, suspecting under this incredible mission some 
jvily device of the Norman, who, by thus warning Edward 
(of whose precarious health he was well aware), might 
induce his timorous conscience to take steps for the com- 
pletion of the old promise. — Harold, we say, thus sus- 
pecting, in vain endeavored to combat the king’s present- 
iments, but Edward interrupted him, with displeased 
firmness of look and tone — 

“ Come not thou, with thy human reasonings, between 
my soul and the messenger divine ; but rather nerve and 
prepare thyself for the dire calamities that lie greeding 
in the days to come ! Be thine, things temporal. All 
the land is in rebellion. Anlaf, whom thy coming dis- 
missed, hath just wearied me with sad tales of bloodshed 
and ravage. Go and hear him ; — go hear the bodes of 
thy brother Tostig, who wait without in our hall ; go, 
take axe, and take shield, and the men of earth’s war, 

* Ail. de Vit. Edw. — Many other chroniclers mention this legend, 
of which the stonee of Westminster Abbey itself prated, in the 
statues of Edward and the Pilgrim, placed over the arch ir Dean’s 
Vard. 


IIAROLD. 


123 


and do justice and right ; and on thy return thou shalt 
see with what rapture sublime a Christian king can soar 
aloft from his throne ! Go ! ” 

More moved, and more softened, than in the former 
day he had been with Edward’s sincere, if fanatical piety, 
Harold, turning aside to conceal his face, said, — 

“ Would, 0 royal Edward, that my heart, amidst worldly 
cares, were as pure and serene as thine ! But, at least, 
what erring mortal may do to guard this realm, and face 
the evils thou foreseest in the Far — that will I do ; and, 
perchance then, in my dying hour, God’s pardon and 
peace may descend on me 1 ” He spoke, and went. 

The accounts he received from Anlaf (a veteran Anglo- 
Dane), were indeed more alarming than he had yet heard. 
Morcar, the bold son of Algar, was already proclaimed, 
oy the rebels, earl of Northumbria ; the shires of Not- 
tingham, Derby, and Lincoln, had poured forth their 
hardy Dane populations on his behalf. All Mercia was 
in arras under his brother Edwin ; and many of the Cym- 
rian chiefs had already joined the ally of the butchered 
Gryffyth. 

Not a moment did the earl lose in proclaiming the 
Her-bann ; sheaves of arrows were splintered, and the 
fragments, as announcing the War-Fyrd, were sent from 
thegn to thegn, and town to town. Fresh messengers 
were despatched to Gurth to collect the whole force of 
his own earldom, and haste by quick marches to London : 
and, these preparations made, Harold returned to the 
metropolis, and with a heavy heart sought his mother, as 
his next care. 


124 


HAROLD 


Qitha was already prepared for his news ; for Ha j 
had of his own accord gone to break the first shock of 
disappointment. There was in this youth a noiseless 
sagacity that seemed ever provident for Harold. With 
his sombre, smileless cheek, and gloom of beauty, bowed 
as if beneath the weight of some invisible doom, he had 
already become linked indissolubly with the earl’s fate, as 
its angel, — but as its angel of darkness! 

To Harold’s intense relief, Githa stretched forth her 
hands as he entered, and said, “ Thou hast failed me, but 
against thy will! Grieve not; I am content!” 

“Now our Lady be blessed, mother — ” 

“I have told her,” said Haco, who was standing, with 
arms folded, by the fire, the blaze of which reddened fit- 
fully his hueless countenance with its raven hair ; “ I have 
told thy mother that Wolnoth loves his captivity, and 
enjoys the cage. And the lady hath had comfort in my 
words.” 

“Not in thine only, son of Sweyn, but in those of 
fate : for before thy coming I prayed against the long 
blind yearning of my heart, prayed that Wolnoth might 
not cross the sea with his kinsmen.” 

“ How ! ” exclaimed the earl, astonished. 

Githa took his arm, and led him to the farther end of 
the ample chamber, as if out of the hearing of Haco, who 
turned his face towards the fire, and gazed into the fierce 
blaze with muzing, unwinking eyes. 

“ Couldst thou think, Harold, that in thy journey, that 
on the errand of so great fear and hope, I could sit brood- 


HAROLD. 


125 


ing in my chair, and count the stitches on the tremulous 
hangings ? No : day by day have I sought the lore of 
Hilda, and at night I have watched with her by the fount, 
and the elm, and the tomb ; and I know that thou hast 
gone through dire peril ; the prison, the war, and the 
snare ; and I know also, that his Fylgia hath saved the 
life of my Wolnoth; for had he returned to his native 
land, he had returned but to a bloody grave 1 ” 

“ Says Hilda this ? ” said the earl, thoughtfully. 

“ So say the Yala, the rune, and the Scin-lmca 1 and 
such is the doom that now darkens the brow of Haco ! 
Seest thou not that the hand of death is in the hush of 
the smileless lip, and the glance of the unjoyous eye ? ” 
“Nay, it is but the thought born to captive youth, and 
nurtured in solitary dreams. Thou hast seen Hilda ? — 
and Edith, my mother? Edith is — ” 

“ Well,” said Githa kindly, for she sympathized with 
that love which Godwin would have condemned, “though 
she grieved deeply after thy departure, and would sit for 
hours gazing into space, and moaning. But even ere 
Hilda divined thy safe return, Edith knew it ; I was be- 
side her at the time ; she started up, and cried — ‘ Harold 
is iu England ! 1 — ‘ How ? Why thinkest thou so ? ’ said 
I And Edith answered, ‘I feel it by the touch of the 
earth, by the breath of the air.’ This is more than love, 
Harold. I knew two twins who had the same instinct of 
each other’s comings and goings, and were present each 
to each even when absent : Edith is twin to thy soul. 

Thou goest to her now, Harold : thou wilt find there thy 
11 * 


126 


HAROLD. 


sister Thyra. The child hath drooped of late, and I be 
sought Hilda to revive her, with herb and charm. Thou 
wilt come back ere thou departest to aid Tostig, thy 
brother, and tell me how Hilda hath prospered with my 
ailing child ? ” 

“ I will, my mother. Be cheered ! — Hilda is a skilful 
nurse. And now bless thee, that thou hast not reproached 
me that my mission failed to fulfil my promise. Welcome 
even our kinswoman’s sayings, sith they comfort thee for 
the loss of thy darling ! ” 

Then Harold left the room, mounted his steed, and 
rode through the town towards the bridge. He was com- 
pelled to ride slowly through the streets, for he was 
recognized ; and cheapman and mechanic rushed from 
house and from stall to hail the Man of the Land and the 
Time. 

“ All is safe now in England, for Harold is come back 1 ” 
They seemed joyous as the children of the mariner, when, 
with wet garments, he struggles to shore through the 
storm. And kind and loving were Harold’s looks and 
brief words, as he rode with vailed bonnet through the 
swarming streets. 

At length he cleared the town and the bridge ; and the 
yellowing boughs of the orchards drooped over the road 
towards the Roman home, when, as he spurred his steed, 
he heard behind him hoofs as in pursuit, looked back, 
and beheld Haco. He drew rein, — “ What wantest thou, 
my nephew ? ” 


HAROLD. 127 

" Thee ! ” answered Haco, briefly, as be gained his side. 
“Thy companionship. ” 

‘ Thanks, Haco; but I pray thee to stay in my 
mother’s house, for I would fain ride alone.” 

“ Spurn me not from thee, Harold ! This England is 
to me the land of the stranger ; in thy mother’s house I 
feel but the more the orphan. Henceforth I have devoted 
to thee my life ! And my life my dead and dread father 
hath left to thee, as a doom or a blessing ; wherefore 
cleave I to thy side ; — cleave we in life and in death to 
each other ! ” 

An undefined and cheerless thrill shot through the 
earl’s heart as the youth spoke thus ; and the remem- 
brance that Haco’s counsel had first induced him to 
abandon his natural hardy and gallant manhood, meet 
wile by wile, and thus suddenly entangled him in his own 
meshes, had already mingled an inexpressible bitterness 
with his pity and affection for his brother’s son. But 
struggling against that uneasy sentiment, as unjust to- 
wards one to whose counsel — however sinister, and now 
repented — he probably owed, at least, his safety and 
deliverance, he replied gently, — 

“ I accept thy trust and thy love, Haco ! Ride with 
me, then ; but pardon a dull comrade, for when the soul 
communes with itself the lip is silent.” 

“ True,” said Haco, “ and I am no babbler. Three 
things are ever silent : Thought, Destiny, and the Grave.” 

Each then, pursuing his own fancies, rode on fast, and 
side by side ; the long shadows of declining day struggling 


128 


HAROLD. 


with a sky of unusual brightness, and thrown from the 
dim forest trees and the distant hillocks. Alternately 
through shade and through light rode they on ; the bulls 
gazing on them from holt and glade, and the boom of 
the bittern sounding in its peculiar mournfulness of tone 
as it rose from the dank pools that glistened in the 
western sun. 

It was always by the rear of the house, where stood 
the ruined temple, so associated with the romance of his 
life, that Harold approached the home of the Yala; and 
as now the hillock, with its melancholy diadem of stones, 
came in view, Haco for the first time broke the silence. 

“ Again — as in a dream ; ” he said abruptly. “ Hill, 
ruin, grave-mound — but where the tall image of the 
mighty one ? ” 

“Hast thou then seen this spot before ?” asked the 
earl. 

“ Yea, as an infant here was I led by my father Sweyn ; 
here too, from thy house yonder, dim seen through the 
fading leaves, on the eve before I left this land for the 
Norman, here did I wander alone; and there, by that 
altar, did the great Yala of the North chaunt her runes 
for my future.” 

u Alas ! thou too ! ” murmured Harold ; and then he 
asked aloud, “ What said she ? ” 

“ That thy life and mine crossed each other in the 
skein ; that I should save thee from a great peril, and 
share with thee a greater.” 

“ Ah, youth,” answered Harold bitterly, “ these vain 


HAROLD. 


129 


prophecies of human wit guard the soul from no danger. 
They mislead us by riddles which our hot hearts interpret 
according to their own desires. Keep thou fast to 
youth’s simple wisdom, and trust only to the pure spirit 
and the watchful God.” 

He suppressed a groan as he spoke, and springing from 
his steed, which he left loose, advanced up the hill. 
When he had gained the height, he halted, and made 
sign to Hacc, -who had also dismounted, to do the same. 
Half-way down the side of the slope which faced the 
ruined peristyle, Haco beheld a maiden, still young, and 
of beauty surpassing all that the court of Normandy 
boasted of female loveliness. She was seated on the 
sward; — while a girl, younger, and scarcely indeed 
grown into womanhood, reclined at her feet, and leaning 
her cheek upon her hand, seemed hushed in listening 
attention. In the face of the younger girl Haco recog- 
nized Thyra, the last-born of Githa, though he had but 
once seen her before — the day ere he left England for 
the Norman court — for the face of the girl was but little 
changed, save that the eye was more mournful, and the 
cheek was paler. 

And Harold’s betrothed was singing, in the still autumn 
air, to Harold’s sister. The song chosen was on that 
subject the most popular with the Saxon poets, the mystic 
life, death, and resurrection of the fabled Phoenix ; and 
this rhymeless song, in its old native flow, may yet find 
some grace in the modern ear. 

11* 2 h 


130 


HAROLD. 


THE LAY OF THE PHCENIX.* 

“Shineth far hence — so 
Sing the wise elders — 

Far to the fire east 
The fairest of lands. 

“ Daintily dight is that 
Dearest of joy fields ; 

Breezes all balm-y-filled 
Glide through its groves. 

“ There to the blest, ope 

The high doors of heaven, 
Sweetly sweep earthward 
Their wavelets of song. 

“Frost robes the sward not, 
Rushes no hail-steed; 
Wind-cloud ne’er wanders, 
Ne’er falleth the rain. 

“ Warding the woodholt, 

Girt with gay wonder, 

Sheen with the plumy shine, 
Phoenix abides. 

“Lord of the Lleod,f 

Whose home is the air, 
Winters a thousand 
Abideth the bird. 


* This ancient Saxon lay, apparently of the date of the tenth or 
eleventh century, may be found, admirably translated by Mr. 
George Stephens, in the Archaeologia, vol. xxx. p. 259. In the 
text the poem is much abridged, reduced into rhythm, and in some 
stanzas wholly altered from the original ; but it is, nevertheless, 
greatly indebted to Mr. Stephen’s translation, from which several 
lines are borrowed verbatim. The more careful reader will note 
the great aid given to a rhymeless metre by alliteration. I am not 
sure that this old Saxon mode of verse might not be profitably re- 
stored to our national muse, 
f People. 


HAROLD. 131 

“Hapless and heavy then 
Waxeth the hazy wing; 

Year- worn and old in tne 
Whirl of the earth. 

“Then the high holt-top. 

Mounting, the bird soars; 

There, where the winds sleep, 

He buildeth a nest; — 

“Gums the most precious, and 
Balms of the sweetest, 

Spices and odors, he 
Weaves in the nest. 

“ There, in that sun-ark, lo, 

Waiteth he wistful; 

Summer comes smiling, lo, 

Rays smite the pile ! 

“Burden’d with eld-years, and 
Weary with slow time, 

Slow in his odor-nest, 

Burneth the bird. 

“Up from those ashes, then, 

Springeth a rare. fruit; 

Deep in the rare fruit 
There coileth a worm. 

“Weaving bliss-meshes 
Around and around it, 

Silent and blissful, the 
Worm worketh on. 

“Lo, from the airy web, 

Blooming and brightsome, 

Young and exulting, the 
Phoenix breaks forth. 

“Round him the birds troop. 

Singing and hailing; 

Wings of all glories 
Engarland the king. 


HAROLD. 


*5 

“ Hymning and hailing, 

Through forest and sun-air, 

Hymning and hailing, 

And speaking him ‘King.* 

“High flies the phoenix. 

Escaped from the worm- web* 

He soars in the sun-light, 

He bathes in the dew. 

“He visits his old haunts, 

The holt and the sun-hill; 

The founts of his youth, and 
The fields of his love. 

“ The stars in the welkin, 

The blooms on the earth, 

Are glad in his gladness, 

Are young in his youth. 

“ While round him the birds troop, the 
Hosts of the Himmel,* 

Blisses of music, and 
Glories of wings; 

“ Hymning and hailing, 

And filling the sun-air 
With music and glory 
And praise of the king.” 

As the lay ceased, Thyra said, — 

“Ah, Edith, who would not brave the funeral-pyre to 
II 7e again like the phoenix I” 

“ Sweet sister mine,” answered Edith, “ the singer doth 
mean to image out in the phoenix the rising of our Lord, 
in whom we all live again.” 

And Thyra said mournfully, — 


* Heaven. 


HAROLD. 


133 


“But the phoenix sees once more the haunts of his 
youth — the things and places dear to him in his life be- 
'ore. Shall we do the same, 0 Edith ? ” 

“It is the persons we love that make beautiful the 
haunts we have known,” answered the betrothed. “ Those 
persons at least we shall behold again, and wherever they 
are — there is heaven.” 

Harold could restrain himself no longer. With one 
bound he was at Edith’s side, and with one wild cry of 
joy he clasped her to his heart. 

“ I knew that thou wouldst come to-night — I knew it, 
Harold,” murmured the betrothed. 


CHAPTER III. 

While, full of themselves, Harold and Edith wandered, 
nand in hand, through the neighboring glades — while 
into that breast which had forestalled, at least, in this 
pure and sublime union, the wife’s privilege to soothe and 
console, the troubled man poured out the tale of the sole 
trial from which he had passed with defeat and shame,-- 
Haco drew near to Thyra, and sate down by her side. 
Each was strangely attracted towards the other ; there 
was something congenial in the gloom which they shared 
in common ; though in the girl the sadness was soft and 
resigned, in the youth it was stern and solemn. They 
conversed in whispers, and their talk was strange for 
II. — 12 


M 


134 


HAROLD. 


companions so young ; for, whether suggested by Edith’s 
song, or the neighborhood of the Saxon grave-stone, 
which gleamed on their eyes, grey and wan, through the 
crommel, the theme they selected was of Death. As if 
fascinated as children often are, by the terrors of the 
Dark King, they dwelt on those images with which the 
northern fancy has associated the eternal rest, — on the 
shroud and the worm, and the mouldering bones — on the 
gibbering ghost, and the sorcerer’s spell that could call 
the spectre from the grave. They talked of the pain of 
the parting soul, parting while earth was yet fair, youth 
fresh, and joy not yet ripened from the blossom — of the 
wistful lingering look which the glazing eyes would give 
to the latest sunlight it should behold on earth ; and then 
pictured the shivering and naked soul, forced from the 
reluctant clay, wandering through cheerless space to the 
intermediate tortures, which the Church taught that none 
were so pure as not for a while to undergo ; and hearing, 
as it wandered, the knell of the muffled bells and the 
burst of unavailing prayer. At length Haco paused 
abruptly, and said, — 

“But thou, cousin, hast before thee love and sweet 
li'e, and these discourses are not for thee.” 

• Thyra shook her head mournfully, — 

“ Not so, Haco ; for when Hilda consulted the runes, 
while, last night, she mingled the herbs for my pain, 
which rests ever hot and sharp here,” and the girl laid 
her hand on her breast, “ I saw that her face grew dark 
and overcast ; and I felt, as T looked, that my doom was 


HAROLD 


135 


set. And when thou didst come so noiselessly to my 
side, with thy sad, cold eyes, 0 Haco, methought I saw 
the Messenger of Death. But thou art strong, Haco, 
and life will be long for thee ; let us talk of Life.” 

Haco stooped down and pressed his lips upon the girl’s 
pale forehead. 

“Kiss me too, Thyra.” 

The child kissed him, and they sate silent and close by 
each other while the sun set. 

And as the stars rose, Harold and Edith joined them. 
Harold’s face was serene in the star-light, for the pure 
soul of his betrothed had breathed peace into his own ; 
and, in his willing superstition, he felt as if, now restored 
to his guardian angel, the dead men’s bones had released 
their unhallowed hold. 

But suddenly Edith’s hand trembled in his, and her 
form shuddered. — Her eyes were fixed upon those of 
Haco. 

“ Forgive me, young kinsman, that I forgot thee so 
long,” said the earl. “ This is my brother’s son, Edith ; 
thou hast not, that I remember, seen him before ?” 

“Yes, yes;” said Edith, falteringly. 

“ When, and where ? ” 

Edith’s soul answered the question, 11 In a dream 
but her lips were silent. 

And Haco, rising, took her by the hand, while the earl 
turned to his sister — that sister whom he was pledged to 
send to the Norman court ; and Thyra said plaintively, — 


136 


HAROLD. 


“ Take me in tliine arms, Harold, and wrap thy mantle 
round me, for the air is cold.” 

The earl lifted the child to his breast, and gazed on 
her cheek long and wistfully ; then questioning her ten- 
derly, he took her within the house ; and Edith followed 
with Haco. 

“Is Hilda within ? ” asked the son of Sweyn. 

“ Nay, she hath been in the forest since noon,” answered 
Edith with an effort, for she could not recover her awe 
of his presence. 

“ Then,” said Haco, halting at the threshold, “ I will 
go across the woodland to your house, Harold, aud pre- 
pare your ceorls for your coming.” 

“I shall tarry here till Hilda returns,” answered Ha- 
rold, “ and it may be late in the night ere I reach home ; 
but Sexwolf already hath my orders. At sunrise we 
return to London, and thence we march on the insur- 
gents.” 

“ All shall be ready. Farewell, noble Edith ; and 
thou, Thyra my cousin, one kiss more to our meeting 
again.” 

The child fondly held out her arms to him, and as she 
kissed his cheek, whispered, — 

“ In the grave, Haco 1 ” 

The young man drew his mantle around him, and moved 
away. But he did not mount his steed, which still grazed 
by the road ; while Harold’s, more familiar with the 
place, had found its way to the stall ; nor did he take 
his path through the glades to the house of his kinsman 


HAROLD. 1ST 

Entering the Druid temple, he stood musing by the 
Teuton tomb. 

The night grew deep and deeper, the stars more lumin- 
ous, and the air more hushed, when a voice close at his 
side, said clear and abrupt, — 

“ What does S outh the restless, by Death the still ?” 
It was the peculiarity of Haco, that nothing ever 
seemed to startle or surprise him. In that brooding boy- 
hood, the solemn, quiet, and sad experience all fore-armed, 
of age, had something in it terrible and preternatural ; 
so, without lifting his eyes from the stone, he answered, — 
“ How sayest thou, 0 Hilda, that the dead are still 
Hilda placed her hand on his shoulder, and stooped to 
look into his face. 

“ Thy rebuke is just, son of Sweyn. In Time, and in 
the Universe, there is no stillness ! Through all eternity 
the state impossible to the soul is repose ! — So again 
thou art in thy native land ? ” 

“And for what end, Prophetess ? I remember, when 
but an infant, who till then had enjoyed the common air 
and the daily sun, thou didst rob me evermore of child- 
hood and youth. For thou didst say to my father, that 
‘ dark was the woof of my fate, and that its most glori- 
ous hour should be its last ! ’ 

“ But thou wert surely too child-like (I see thee now 
as thou wert then, stretched on the grass, and playing 
with thy father’s falcon!) — too child-like to heed my 
words.” 

“ Does the new ground reject the germs of the sower, 
12 * 


138 


H A.ROLD. 


or t he young heart the first lessons of wonder and awe ? 
Since then, Prophetess, Night hath been ray comrade, 
and Death my familiar. Rememberest thou again the 
hour when, stealing, a boy, from Harold’s house in his 
absence — the night ere I left my land — I stood on this 
mound by thy side ? Then did I tell thee that the sole 
soft thought that relieved the bitterness of my soul, when 
all the rest of my kinsfolk seemed to behold in me but 
the heir of Sweyn, the outlaw and homicide, was the love 
that I bore to Harold ; but that that love itself was mourn- 
ful and bodeful as the hwata * of distant sorrow. And 
thou didst take me, 0 Prophetess, to thy bosom, and thy 
cold kiss touched my lips and my brow ; and there, be- 
side this altar and grave-mound, by leaf and by water, by 
staff and by song, thou didst bid me take comfort ; for 
that as the mouse gnawed the toils of the lion, so the 
exile obscure should deliver from peril the pride and the 
prince of my House — that, from that hour with the skein 
of his fate should mine be entwined ; and his fate was 
that of kings and of kingdoms. And then, when the joy 
flushed my cheek, and methought youth came back in 
warmth to the night of my soul — then, Hilda, I asked 
thee if my life would be spared till I had redeemed the 
name of my father. Thy seid-staff passed over the leaves 
that, burning with fire-sparks, symbolled the life of the 
man, and from the third leaf the flame leaped up and 
died ; and again a voice from thy breast, hollow, as if 
borne from a hill-top afar, made answer, ‘At thine entrance 


* Omen. 


HAROLD. 


m 


to manhood, life bursts into blaze, and shrivels up into 
ashes.* So I knew that the doom of the infant still 
weighed unannealed on the years of the man ; and I come 
here to my native land as to glory and the grave. But,” 
said the young man, with a wild enthusiasm, “ still with 
mine links the fate which is loftiest in England ; and the 
fill and the river shall rush in one to the Terrible Sea.” 

“ I know not that,” answered Hilda, pale, as if in awe 
of herself : “ for never yet hath the rune, or the fount, or 
the tomb, revealed to me clear and distinct the close of 
the great course of Harold ; only know I through his 
own stars his glory and greatness ; and where glory is 
dim, and greatness is menaced, I know it but from the 
stars of others, the rays of whose influence blend with 
his own. So long, at least, as the fair and the pure one 
keeps watch in the still House of Life, the dark and the 
troubled one cannot wholly prevail. For Edith is given 
to Harold as the Fylgia, that noiselessly blesses and 
saves : and thou — ” Hilda checked herself, and lowered 
her hood over her face, so that it suddeuly became in 
visible. 

“And I ? ” asked Haco, moving near to her side. 

“Away, son of Sweyn ; thy feet trample the grave of 
the mighty dead ! ” 

Then Hilda lingered no longer, but took her way to- 
wards the house. Haco’s eye followed her in silence. 
The cattle, grazing in the great space of the crumbling 
peristyle, looked up as she passed ; the watch-dogs, 
wandering through the star-lit columns, came snorting 


140 


HAROLD. 


round their mistress. And when she had vanished within 
the house, Haco turned to his steed — 

“What matters,” he murmured, “the answer which 
the Yala cannot or dare not give ? To me is not destined 
the love of woman, nor the ambition of life. All I know 
of human affection binds me to Harold ; all I know of 
human ambition is to share in his fate. This love is 
strong as hate, and terrible as doom — it is jealous, it 
admits no rival. As the shell and the sea-weed inter- 
laced together, we are dashed on the rushing surge ; 
whither ? oh, whither ? ” 


CHAPTER IY. 

“I tell thee, Hilda,” said the earl, impatiently, “I 
tell thee that I renounce, henceforth, all faith, save in 
Him whose ways are concealed from our eyes. Thy seid 
and thy galdra have not guarded me against peril, nor 
armed me against sin. Nay, perchance — but peace ! I 
will no more tempt the dark art, I will no more seek to 
disentangle the awful truth from the juggling lie. All 
so foretold me I will seek to forget — hope from no pro- 
phecy, fear from no warning. Let the soul go to the 
future, under the shadow of God I ” 

“ Pass on thy way as thou wilt, its goal is the same, 
whether seen or unmarked. Peradventure thou art wise,” 
said the Yala, gloomilv 


HAROLD. 


141 


‘‘For my country’s sake, heaven be my witness, not 
my own,” resumed the earl, “I have blotted my con- 
science and sullied my truth. My country alone can 
redeem me, by taking my life as a thing hallowed ever- 
more to her service. Selfish ambition do I lay aside, 
selfish power shall tempt me no more ; lost is the charm 
that I beheld in a throne, and, save for Edith — ” 

“No! not even for Edith,” cried the betrothed, ad- 
vancing, “ not even for Edith shalt thou listen to other 
voice than that of thy country and thy soul.” 

The earl turned round abruptly, and his eyes were 
moist. 

“0 Hilda,” he cried, “see henceforth my only Yala; 
let that noble heart alone interpret to us the oracles of 
the future.” 

The next day Harold returned with Haco and a 
numerous train of his house-carles to the city. Their 
ride was as silent as that of the day before ; but, on 
reaching Southwark, Harold turned away from the bridge 
towards the left, gained the river-side, and dismounted 
at the house of one of his lithsmen (a frankling or freed 
ceorl). Leaving there his horse, he summoned a boat ; 
aud, with Haco, was rowed over towards the fortified 
palace which then rose towards the west of London, 
jutting into the Thames, and which seems to have formed 
the outwork of the old Roman city. The palace, of 
remotest antiquity, and blending all work and archi- 
tecture, Roman, Saxon, and Danish, had been repaired 
by Canute ; and from a high window in the upper story, 


142 


HAROLD. 


where were the royal apartments, the body of the traitor 
Edric Streone (the founder of the house of Godwin) had 
been thrown into the river. 

“Whither go we, Harold ?” asked the son of Sweyn. 

“We go to visit the young Atheling, the natural heir 
to the Saxon throne,” replied Harold, in a firm voice. 
“He lodges in the old palace of our kings.” 

“ They say in Normandy that the boy is imbecile.” 

“ That is not true,” returned Harold. “ I will present 
thee to him — judge.” 

Haco mused a moment, and said — 

“ Methinks I divine thy purpose ; is it not formed on 
the sudden, Harold ? ” 

“ It was the counsel of Edith,” answered Harold, with 
evident emotion. <f And yet, if that counsel prevail, I 
may lose the power to soften the Church, and to call her 
mine.” 

“ So thou wouldst sacrifice even Edith for thy country.” 

“Since I have sinned, methinks I could,” said the 
proud man, humbly. 

The boat shot into a little creek, or rather canal, which 
then ran inland, beside the black and rotting walls of the 
fort. The two earl-born leaped ashore, passed under a 
Roman arch, entered a court, the interior of which was 
rudely filled up by early Saxon habitations of rough 
timber-work, already, since the time of Canute, falling 
into decay (as all things did which came under the care 
of Edward), and mounting a stair that ran along the 
outside of the house, gained a low narrow door which 


HAROLD. 


143 


stood open. In the passage within were one or two of 
the king’s house-carles, who had been assigned to the 
young Atheling, with liveries of blue, and Danish axes, 
and some four or five German servitors, who had attended 
his father from the emperor’s court. One of these last 
ushered the noble Saxons into a low, forlorn ante-hall ; 
and there, to Harold’s surprise, he found Aired, the 
Archbishop of York, and three thegns of high rank, and 
of lineage ancient and purely Saxon. 

Aired approached Harold, with a faint smile on his 
benign face ; — 

“Methinks, and may I think aright! — thou comest 
hither with the same purpose as myself, and you noble 
thegns.” 

‘‘And that purpose?” 

“ Is to see and to judge calmly, if, despite his years, 
we may find in the descendant of the Ironsides such a 
prince as we may commend to our decaying king as his 
heir, and to the Witan as a chief fit to defend the land.” 

“ Thou speakest the cause of my own coming. With 
your ears will I hear, with your eyes will I see, as ye 
judge, will judge I,” said Harold, drawing the prelate 
towards the thegns, so that they might hear his answer. 

The chiefs, who belonged to a party that had often 
opposed Godwin’s house, had exchanged looks of feat 
and trouble when Harold entered ; but at his words theii 
frank faces showed equal surprise and pleasure. 

Harold presented to them his nephew, with whose grave, 
dignity of bearing beyond his years they were favorably 


144 


HAROLD. 


mpressed, though the good bishop sighed when he saw 
in his face the sombre beauty of the guilty sire. The 
group then conversed anxiously on the declining health 
of the king, the disturbed state of the realm, and the ex- 
pediency, if possible, of uniting all suffrages in favor of 
the fittest successor. And, in Harold’s voice and manner, 
as in Harold’s heart, there was nought that seemed con- 
scious of his own mighty stake and just hopes in that 
election. But, as time wore, the faces of the thegns grew 
overcast ; proud men and great satraps* were they, and 
they liked it ill that the boy prince kept them so long in 
the dismal ante-room. 

At length, the German officer, who had gone to an- 
nounce their coming, returned ; and, in words, intelligible 
indeed from the affinity between Saxon and German, but 
still disagreeably foreign to English ears, requested them 
to follow him into the presence of the Atheling. 

In a room yet retaining the rude splendor with which 
it had been invested by Canute, a handsome boy, about 
the age of thirteen or fourteeu, but seeming much younger, 
was engaged in the construction of a stuffed bird, a lure 
for a young hawk that stood blindfold on its perch. The 
employment made so habitual a part of the serious edu- 
cation of youth, that the thegns smoothed their brows at 
the sight, and deemed the boy worthily occupied. At 

* The Eastern word Satraps ( Satrapes ) made one of the ordinary 
and most inappropriate titles (borrowed, no doubt, from the By- 
zantine Court), by which the Saxons, in their Latinity, honored 
their simple nobles. 


HAROLD. lit 

another end of the room, a grave Norman priest was 
seated at a table, on which were books and writing im- 
plements ; he was the tutor, commissioned by Edward, 
to teach Norman tongue and saintly lore to the Athel- 
ing. A profusion of toys strewed the floor, and some 
children of Edgar’s own age were playing with them. 
His little sister Margaret* was seated seriously, apart 
from all the other children, and employed in needle-work. 

When Aired approached the Atheling, with a blend- 
ing of reverent obeisance and paternal cordiality, the boy 
carelessly cried, in a barbarous jargon, half German, half 
Norman-French, — 

“ There, come not too near, you scare my hawk. What 
are you doing ? You trample my toys, which the good 
Norman bishop William sent me as a gift from the duke. 
Art thou blind, man?” 

“ My son,” said the prelate, kindly, “ these are the 
things of childhood — childhood ends sooner with princes 
than with common men. Leave thy lure and thy toys, 
and welcome these noble thegns, and address them, so 
please you, in our own Saxon tongue.” 

“ Saxon tongue ! — language of villeins ! not I. Little 
do 1 know of it, save to scold a ceorl or a nurse. King 
Edward did not tell me to learn Saxon, but Norman ! and 
Godfroi yonder says, that if I know Norman well, duke 
William will make me his knight. But I don’t desire to 

* Afterwards married to Malcolm of Scotland, through whom by 
the female line, the present roj’al dynasty of England assumes de- 
scent from the Anglo-Saxon kings. 

II. — 13 2i 


14b 


HAROLD. 


learn anything more to-day.” And the child turned 
peevishly from thegn and prelate. 

The three Saxon lords interchanged looks of profound 
displeasure and proud disgust. But Harold, with an 
effort over himself, approached, and said, winningly, — 
“Edgar the Atheling, thou art not so young but thou 
knowest already that the great live for others. Wilt thou 
not be proud to live for this fair country, and these noble 
-men, and to speak the language of Alfred the Great ? ” 

“ Alfred the Great ! they always weary me with Alfred 
the Great,” said the boy, pouting. “Alfred the Great, 
he is the plague of my life ! if I am Atheling, men are 
to live for me, not I for them ; and if you tease me any 
more, I will run away to Duke William, in Rouen ; God- 
froi says I shall never be teased there 1 ” 

So saying, already tired of hawk and lure, the child 
threw himself on the floor with the other children, and 
suatched the toys from their hands. 

The serious Margaret then rose quietly, and went to 
her brother, and said in good Saxon, — 

“ Fie I if you behave thus, I shall call you niddering ! ” 
At the threat of that word, the vilest in the language 
— that word which the lowest ceorl would forfeit life 
rather than endure — a threat applied to the Atheling of 
England, the descendant of Saxon heroes — the three 
thegns drew close, and watched the boy, hoping to see 
that he would start to his feet with wrath and in shame. 
“ Call me what you will, silly sister,” said the child, 


HAROLD. 147 

indifferently, “I am not so Saxon as to care for your 
ceorlish Saxon names.” 

“ Enow,” cried the proudest and greatest of the thegns. 
his very moustache curling with ire. “ He who can be 
called niddering shall never be crowned king ! ” 

“ I don’t want to be crowned king, rude man, with your 
laidly moustache; I want to be made knight, and have a 
banderol and baldric. Go away ! ” 

“We go, son,” said Aired, mournfully. 

And, with slow and tottering step, he moved to the 
door ; there he halted, turned back, — and the child was 
pointing at him in mimicry, while Godfroi, the Norman 
tutor, smiled, as in pleasure. The prelate shook his head, 
and the group gained once more the ante-hall. 

“ Fit leader of bearded men 1 fit king for the Saxon 
land!” cried a thegn. “No more of your Atheling, 
Aired my father ! ” 

“No more of him, indeed ! ” said the prelate, mourn- 
fully. 

“ It is but the fault of his nurture and rearing, — p 
neglected childhood, a Norman tutor, German hirelings. 
We may remould yet the pliant clay,” said Harold. 

“ Nay,” returned Aired, “ no leisure for such hopes, no 
time to undo what is done by circumstance, and, I fear, 
by nature. Ere the year is out the throne will stand 
empty in our halls.” 

“Who then,” said Haco, abruptly, “who then — (par- 
don the ignorance of youth wasted in captivity abroad !) 
who then, failing the Atheling, will save this realm from 


148 


HAROLD. 


the Norman duke, who, I know well, counts on it as the 
reaper on the harvest ripening to his sickle ? ” 

“Alas, who then?” murmured Aired. 

“ Who then ? ” cried the three thegns, with one voice ; 
“ why the worthiest, the wisest, the bravest 1 Stand forth, 
Harold the Earl. Thou art the man !” And, without 
waiting his answer, they strode from the hall. 


CHAPTER Y. 

Abound Northampton lay the forces of Morcar, the 
choice of the Anglo-Dane men of Northumbria. Sud- 
denly there was a shout as to arms, from the encampment ; 
and Morcar, the young earl, clad in his link-mail, save 
his helmet, came forth, and cried, — 

“ My men are fools to look that way for a foe ; yonder 
lies Mercia, behind it the hills of Wales. The troops 
that come hitherward are those which Edwin, my brother, 
brings to our aid.” 

Morcar’s words were carried into the host by his cap- 
tains and war-bodes, and the shout changed from alarm 
into joy. As the cloud of dust, through which gleamed 
the spears of the coming force, rolled away, and lay 
lagging behind the march of the host, there rode forth 
from the van two riders. Fast and far from the rest they 
rode, and behind them, fast as they could, spurred two 
others, who bore on high, one the pennon of Mercia, one 


HAROLD. 


149 


the red lion of ISorth Wales. Right to the embankment 
and palisade whir h begirt Morcar’s camp, rode the riders ; 
and the head of the foremost was bare, and the guards 
knew the face of Edwin the Comely, Morcar’s brother. 
Morcar stepped down from the mound on which he stood, 
and the brothers embraced, amidst the halloos of the 
forces. 

“And welcome, I pray thee,” said Morcar, “our kins- 
man, Caradoc, son of Gryffyth* the bold.” 

So Morcar reached his hand to Caradoc, stepson to 
his sister Aldyth, and kissed him on the brow, as was the 
wont of our fathers. The young and crownless prince 
was scarce out of boyhood, but already his name was 
sung by the bards, and circled in the halls of Gwynedd 
with the Hirlas horn ; for he had harried the Saxon 
borders, and given to fire and sword even the fortress of 
Harold himself. 

But while these three interchanged salutations, and ere 
yet the mixed Mercians and Welch had gained the en- 
campment, from a curve in the opposite road, towards 
Towcester and Dunstable, broke the flash of mail like a 
river of light, trumpets and fifes were heard in the dis- 
tance ; and all in Morcar’s host stood hushed but stern, 
gazing anxious and afar, as the coming armament swept 
on. And from the midst were seen the Martlets and 
Cross of England’s king, and the Tiger heads of Harold ; 
banners which, seen together, had planted victory on 

* By his first wife ; Aldyth was his second. 

13 * 


150 


HAROLD. 


every tower, on e^ ery field, towards which they had rushed 
on the winds. 

Retiring, then, to the central mound, the chiefs of the 
insurgent force held their brief council. 

The two young earls, whatever their ancestral renown, 
being yet new themselves to fame and to power, were 
submissive to the Anglo-Dane chiefs, by whom Morcar 
had been elected. And these on recognizing the standard 
of Harold, were unanimous in advice to send a peaceful 
deputation, setting forth their wrongs under Tostig, and 
the justice of their cause. “For the earl,” said Gamel 
Beorn, (the head and front of that revolution), “ is a just 
man, and one who would shed his own blood rather than 
that of any other free-born dweller in England ; and he 
will do us right.” 

“ What, against his own brother ? ” cried Edwin. 

“Against his own brother, if we convince but his rea- 
son,” returned the Anglo-Dane. 

And the other chiefs nodded assent. Caradoc’s fierce 
eyes flashed fire ; but he played with his torque, and 
spoke not. 

Meanwhile, the vanguard of the king’s force had defiled 
under the very walls of Northampton, between the town 
and the insurgents ; and some of the light-armed scouts 
who went forth from Morcar’s camp to gaze on the pro- 
cession, with that singular fearlessness which charac- 
terized, at that period, the rival parties in civil war, re- 
turned to say that they had seen Harold himself in the 
foremost line, and that he was not in mail. 


HAROLD. 


151 


This circumstance the insurgent thegns received as a 
good omen ; and, having already agreed on the deputa- 
tion, about a score of the principal thegns of the north 
went sedately towards the hostile lines. 

By the side of Harold, — armed in mail, with his face 
concealed by the strange Sicilian nose-piece used then 
by most of the Northern nations, — had ridden Tostig, 
who had joined the earl on his march, with a scanty band 
of some fifty or sixty of his Danish liouse-carles. All 
the men throughout broad England that he could com- 
mand or bribe to his cause, were those fifty or sixty hire- 
ling Danes. And it seemed that already there was dispute 
between the brothers, for Harold’s face was flushed, and 
his voice stern, as he said, “ Rate me as thou wilt, bro- 
ther, but I cannot advance at once to the destruction of 
my fellow Englishmen without summons and attempt at 
treaty, — as has ever been the custom of our ancient he- 
roes and our own House.” 

“By all the fiends of the North,” exclaimed Tostig, 
“it is foul shame to talk of treaty and summons to rob- 
bers and rebels. For what art thou here but for chas- 
tisement and revenge ? ” 

“ For justice and right, Tostig.” 

“ Ha ! thou comest not, then, to aid thy brother ?” 

“Yes, if justice and right are, as I trust, with him.” 

Before Tostig could reply, a line was suddenly cleared 
through the armed men, and, with bare heads, and a 
monk lifting the rood on high, amidst the procession, 
advanced the Northumbrian Danes. 


152 


HAROLD. 


“ By the red sword of St. Olave ! ” cried Tostig, “ yon- 
der come the traitors, Gamel Beorn and Gloneion ! You 
will not hear them ? If so, I will not stay to listen. I 
^ave but my axe for my answer to such knaves.” 

** Brother, brother, those men are the most valiant and 
famous chiefs in thine earldom. Go, Tostig, thou art 
not now in the mood to hear reason. Retire into the 
city ; summon its gates to open to the king’s flag. I 
will hear the men.” 

“ Beware how thou judge, save in thy brother’s favor !” 
growled the fierce warrior ; and, tossing his arm on high 
with a contemptuous gesture, he spurred away towards 
the gates. 

Then Harold, dismounting, stood on the ground, under 
the standard of his king, and round him came several of 
the Saxon chiefs, who had kept aloof during the con- 
'erence with Tostig. 

The Northumbrians approached, and saluted the earl 
with grave courtesy. 

Then Gamel Beorn began. But much as Harold had 
feared and foreboded as to the causes of complaint which 
Tostig had given to the Northumbrians, all fear, all fore- 
boding, fell short of the horrors now deliberately un- 
folded ; not only extortion of tribute the most rapacious 
and illegal, but murder the fiercest and most foul. 
Thegns of high birth, without offence or suspicion, but 
who had either excited Tostig’s jealousy, or resisted his 
exactions, had been snared under peaceful pretexts into 


HAROLD. 


153 


his castle,* and butchered in cold blood by his house- 
carles. The cruelties of the old heathen Danes seemed 
revived in the bloody and barbarous tale. 

“And now,” said the thegn, in conclusion, “ canst thou 
condemn us that we rose ? — no partial rising ; — rose all 
Northumbria ! At first but two hundred thegns ; strong 
in our cause, we swelled into the might of a people. Our 
wrongs found sympathy beyond our province, for liberty 
spreads over human hearts as fire over a heath. Wher- 
ever we march, friends gather round us. Thou warrest 
not on a handful of rebels, — half England is with us !”— 

“And ye, — thegns,” answered Harold, “ ye have ceased 
to war against Tostig your earl. Ye war now against 
the king and the Law. Come with your complaints to 
your prince and your Witan, and, if they are just, ye are 
stronger than in yonder palisades and streets of steel.” 

“And so,” said Gamel Beorn, with marked emphasis, 
“now thou art in England, 0 noble earl, — so are we 
willing to come. But when thou wert absent from the 
land, justice seemed to abandon it to force and the battle- 
axe.” 

“ I would thank you for your trust,” answered Harold, 
deeply moved. “ But justice in England rests not on the 
presence and life of a single man. And your speech I 
must not accept as a grace, for it wrongs both my king 
and his council. These charges ye have made, but ye 
nave not proved them. Armed men are not proofs ; and 
granting that hot blood and mortal infirmity of judgment 


13 * 


* Flor Wig. 


154 


HAROLD. 


have caused Tostig to err against you and the right, 
think still of his qualities to reign over men whose lands, 
and whose rivers, lie ever exposed to the dread Northern 
sea-kings. Where will ye find a chief with arm as strong, 
and heart as dauntless ? By his mother’s side he is allied 
to your own lineage. And for the rest, if ye receive him 
back to his earldom, not only do I, Harold, in whom you 
profess to trust, pledge full oblivion of the past, but I 
will undertake, in his name, that he shall rule you well 
for the future, according to the laws of King Canute.” 

“ That will we not hear,” cried the thegns, with one 
voice ; while the tones of Gamel Beorn, rough with the 
rattling Danish burr, rose above all, “for we were born 
free. A proud and bad chief is by us not to be endured ; 
we have learned from our ancestors to live free or die 1 ” 

A murmur, not of condemnation, at these words, was 
heard amongst the Saxon chiefs round Harold ; and be- 
loved and revered as he was, he felt that, had he the 
heart, he had scarce the power, to have coerced those 
warriors to march at once on their countrymen in such a 
cause. But foreseeing great evil in the surrender of his 
brother’s interests, whether by lowering the king’s dignity 
to the demands of armed force, or sending abroad in all 
his fierce passions a man so highly connected with Nor- 
man and Dane, so vindictive and so grasping, as Tostig, 
the earl shunned further parley at that time and place 
He appointed a meeting in the town with the chiefs; 
and requested them, meanwhile, to reconsider their 
demands, and at least shape them so as that they could be 


HAROLD. 


155 


transmitted to the king, who was then on his way to 
Oxford. 

It is in vain to describe the rage of Tostig, when his 
brother gravely repeated to him the accusations against 
him, and asked for his justification. Justification he 
could not give. His idea of law was but force, and by 
force alone he demanded now to be defended. Harold, 
then, wishing not alone to be judge in his brother’s cause, 
referred further discussion to the chiefs of the various 
towns and shires, whose troops had swelled the War- 
Fyrd ; and to them he bade Tostig plead his cause. 

Yain as a woman, while fierce as a tiger, Tostig as- 
sented, and in that assembly he rose, his gonna all blaz- 
ing with crimson and gold, his hair all curled and per- 
fumed as for a banquet ; and such, in a half-barbarous 
day, the effect of person, especially when backed by war- 
like renown, that the Proceres were half disposed to 
forget, in admiration of the earl’s surpassing beauty of 
form, the dark tales of his hideous guilt. But his pas- 
sions hurrying him away ere he had gained the middle 
cf his discourse, so did his own relation condemn himself, 
so clear became his own tyrannous misdeeds, that the 
Englishmen murmured aloud their disgust, and their im- 
patience would not suffer him to close. 

“Enough,” cried Yebba, the blunt thegn from Saxon 
Kent ; “ it is plain that neither king nor Witan can re- 
place thee in thine earldom. Tell us not farther of these 
atrocities • or, by’re Lady, if the Northumbrians had 
chased thee not, we would.” 


156 


HAROLD. 


“ Take treasure and ship, and go to Baldwin in Flan- 
ders,” said Thorold, a great Anglo-Dane from Lincoln- 
shire, “ for even Harold’s name can scarce save thee from 
outlawry.” 

Tostig glared round on the assembly, and met but one 
common expression in the face of all. 

“ These are thy henchmen, Harold ! ” he said through 
his gnashing teeth ; and, without vouchsafing farther 
word, strode from the council-hall. 

That evening he left the town, and hurried to tell to 
Edward the tale that had so miscarried with the chiefs. 
The next day, the Northumbrian delegates were heard; 
and they made the customary proposition in those cases 
of civil differences, to refer all matters to the king and 
the Witan ; each party remaining under arms meanwhile. 

This was finally acceded to. Harold repaired to 
Oxford, where the king (persuaded to the journey by 
Aired, foreseeing what would come to pass) had just 
arrived. 


CHAPTER VI. 

The Witan was summoned in haste. Thither came 
the young earls Morcar and Edwin, but Caradoc, chafing 
at the thought of peace, retired into Wales with his wild 
band. 

Now, all the great chiefs, spiritual and temporal 


HAROLD. 


151 


assembled in Oxford for the decree of that Witan on 
which depended the peace of England. The imminence 
of the time made the concourse of members entitled to 
vote in the assembly even larger than that which had met 
for the inlawry of Godwin. There was but one thought 
uppermost in the minds of men, to which the adjustment 
of an earldom, however mighty, was comparatively in- 
significant — viz., the succession of the kingdom. That 
thought turned instinctively and irresistibly to Harold. 

The evident and rapid decay of the king; the utter 
failure of all male heirs in the House of Cerdic, save only 
the boy Edgar ; whose character (which throughout life 
remained puerile and frivolous) made the minority which 
excluded him from the throne seem cause rather for re- 
joicing than grief : and whose rights, even by birth, were 
not acknowledged by the general tenor of the Saxon 
laws, which did not recognize as heir to the crown the 
son of a father who had not himself been crowned ; * — 
forebodings of coming evil and danger, originating in 
Edward’s perturbed visions; revivals of obscure and till 
then forgotten prophecies, ancient as the days of Merlin ; 
rumors, industriously fomented into certainty by Haco, 

* This truth has been overlooked by writers, who have mnin- 
.nined the Atheling’s right as if incontestable. “ An opinion pre- 
vailed,” says Palgrave, “Eng. Commonwealth,” pp. 559, 500, 
“ that if the Atheling was born before his father and mother were 
ordained to the royal dignity, the crown did not descend to the 
child of uncrowned ancestors.” Our great legal historian quotes 
Eadmer, “De Vit. Sanct. Dunstan,” p. 220, for the objection made 
to the succession of Edward the Martyr, on this score. 

II. — 14 


158 HAROLD. 

whose whole soul seemed devoted to Harold’s cause, of 
the intended claim of the Norman count to the throne ; 

— all concurred to make the election of a man matured 
in camp and council, doubly necessary to the safety of 
the realm. 

Warm favorers, naturally, of Harold, were the genuine 
Saxon population, and a large part of the Anglo-Danish 

— all the thegns in his vast earldom of Wessex, reaching 
to the southern and western coasts, from Sandwich and 
the mouth of the Thames to the Land’s End in Corn 
wall ; and including the free men of Kent, whose inhabi- 
tants even from the days of Caesar had been considered 
in advance of the rest of the British population, and from 
the days of Hengist had exercised an influence that 
nothing save the warlike might of the Anglo-Danes 
counterbalanced. — With Harold, too, were many of the 
thegns from his earlier earldom of East Anglia, com- 
prising the county of Essex, great part of Hertfordshire, 
and so reaching into Cambridge, Huntington, Norfolk, 
-*nd Ely. With him, were all the wealth, intelligence, 

«,d power of London, and most of the trading towns ; 
with him all the veterans of the armies he had led ; with 
him, too, generally throughout the empire, was the force, 
less distinctly demarked, of public and national feeling. 

Even the priests, save those immediately about the 
court, forgot in the exigency of the time, their ancient 
and deep-rooted dislike to Godwin’s House; they re- 
membered, at least, that Harold nad never in foray or 
feud, plundered a single convent; or in peace, and 


HAROLD. 


159 


through plot, appropriated to himself a single hyde of 
Church land ; and that was more than could have been 
said of any other earl of the age — even of Leofric the 
Holy. They caught, as a church must do, when so 
intimately, even in its illiterate errors, allied with the 
people as the old Saxon Church was, the popular 
enthusiasm. Abbot combined with thegn in zeal for 
Earl Harold. 

The only party that stood aloof was the one that 
espoused the claims of the young sons of Algar. But 
this party was indeed most formidable ; it united all the 
old friends of the virtuous Leofric, of the famous Siward ; 
it had a numerous party even in East Anglia (in which 
earldom Algar had succeeded Harold) ; it comprised 
nearly all the thegns in Mercia (the heart of the country), 
and the population of Northumbria; and it involved in 
its wide range the terrible Welch on the one hand, and 
the Scottish domain of the sub-king Malcolm, himself a 
Cambrian, on the other, despite Malcolm’s personal pre- 
dilections for Tostig, to whom he was strongly attached. 
But then the chiefs of - this party while at present they 
stood aloof, were all, with the exception perhaps of the 
young earls themselves, disposed, on the slightest encour- 
agement, to blend their suffrage with the friends of 
Harold ; and his praise was as loud on their lips as on 
those of the Saxons from Kent, or the burghers from 
London. All factions, in short, were willing, in this 
momentous crisis, to lay aside old dissensions; it de- 
pended upon the conciliation of the Northumbrians, upon 


160 


HAROLD. 


a fusion between the friends of Harold and the supporters 
of the young sons of Algar, to form such a concurrence 
of interests as must inevitably bear Harold to the throne 
of the empire. 

Meanwhile, the earl himself wisely and patriotically 
deemed it right to remain neuter in the approaching 
decision between Tostig and the young earls. He could 
not be so unjust and so mad as to urge to the utmost 
(and risk in the urging) his party influence on the side 
of oppression and injustice, solely for the sake of his 
brother ; nor, on the other, was it decorous or natural to 
take part himself against Tostig; nor could he, as a 
statesman, contemplate without anxiety and alarm the 
transfer of so large a portion of the realm to the vice- 
kingship of the sons of his old foe — rivals to his power, 
at the very time when, even for the sake of England 
alone, that power should be the most solid and compact. 

But the final greatness of a fortunate man is rarely 
made by any violent effort of his own. He has sown the 
seeds in the time foregone, and the ripe time brings up 
the harvest. His fate seems taken out of his own con- 
trol ; greatness seems thrust upon him. He has made 
himself, as it were, a want to the nation, a thing necessary 
to it ; he has identified himself with his age, and in the 
wreath or the crown on his brow, the age itself seems to 
put forth his flower. 

Tostig, lodging apart from Harold in a fort near the 
gate of Oxford, took slight pains to conciliate foes or 
make friends ; trusting rather to his representations to 


HAROLD. 


161 


Edward (who was wroth with the rebellious House of 
Algar), of the danger of compromising the royal dignity 
by concessions to armed insurgents. 

It was but three days before that for which the Witan 
was summoned ; most of its members had already assem- 
bled in the city ; and Harold, from the window of the 
monastery in which he lodged, was gazing thoughtfully 
into the streets below, where, with the gay dresses of the 
thegns and cnehts, blended the grave robes of ecclesiastic 
and youthful scholar ; — for to that illustrious university 
(pillaged and persecuted by the sons of Canute), Edward 
had, to his honor, restored the schools, — when Haeo 
entered, and announced to him that a numerous body of 
thegns and prelates, headed by Aired, archbishop of York, 
craved an audience. 

“Knowest thou the cause, Haco ? ” 

The youth’s cheek was yet more pale than usual, as he 
answered slowly, — 

“Hilda’s prophecies are ripening into truths.” 

The earl started, and his old ambition reviving, flushed 
on his brow, and sparkled from his eye — he checked the 
joyous emotion, and bade Haco briefly admit the visitors. 

They came in, two by two, — a body so numerous that 
(hey filled the ample chamber; and Harold, as he greeted 
each, beheld the most powerful lords of the land — the 
highest dignitaries of the Church — and, oft and frequent, 
came old foe by the side of trusty friend. They all paused 
at the foot of the narrow dais on which Harold stood, 
14* 2k 


162 


HAROLD. 


and Aired repelled by a gesture his invitation to the fore 
most to mount the platform. 

Then Aired began an harangue, simple and earnest. 
He described briefly the condition of the country ; touched 
with grief and with feeling on the health of the king, and 
the failure of Cerdic’s line. He stated honestly his own 
strong wish, if possible, to have concentrated the popular 
suffrages on the young Atheling ; and under the emer- 
gence of the case to have waived the objection to his 
immature years. But as distinctly and emphatically he 
stated, that that hope and intent he had now' formally 
abandoned, and that there was but one sentiment on the 
subject with all the chiefs and dignitaries of the realm. 

“ Wherefore,” continued he, “after anxious consulta- 
tions with each other, those whom you see around have 
come to you : yea, to you, Earl Harold, we offer our 
hands and hearts, to do our best to prepare for you the 
throne on the demise of Edward, and to seat you thereon 
as firmly as ever sate King of England and son of Cer- 
dic ; — knowing that in you, and in you alone, we find the 
man who reigns already in the English heart ; to whose 
strong arm we can. trust the defence of our land ; to 
whose just thoughts, our laws. — As I speak, so think we 
all!” 

With downcast eyes Harold heard ; and but by a slight 
heaving of his breast under his crimson robe, could his 
emotion be seen. But as soon as the approving murmur, 
that succeeded the prelate’s speech, had closed, he lifted 
his head, and answered, — 


HAROLD. 


163 


“Holy father, and you, Right Worthy my fellow 
thegns, if ye could read my heart at this moment, believe 
that you would not find there the vain joy of aspiring 
man, when the greatest of earthly prizes is placed within 
his reach. There, you would see, with deep and wordless 
gratitude for your trust and your love, grave and solemn 
solicitude, earnest desire to divest my decision of all mean 
thought of self, and judge only whether indeed, as king 
or as subject, I can best guard the weal of England. 
Pardon me, then, if I answer you not as ambition alone 
would answer ; neither deem me insensible to the glorious 
lot of presiding, under Heaven, and by the light of our 
laws, over the destinies of the English realm, — if I pause 
to weigh well the responsibilities incurred, and the ob- 
stacles to be surmounted. There is that on my mind 
that I would fain unbosom, not of a nature to discuss in 
an assembly so numerous, but which I would rather sub- 
mit to a chosen few whom you yourselves may select to 
hear me, in whose cool wisdom, apart from personal love 
to me, ye may best confide ; — your most veteran thegns, 
your most honored prelates : to them will I speak, to 
them make clean my bosom ; and to their answer, their 
counsels, will I in all things defer : whether with loyal 
heart to serve another, whom, hearing me, they may de- 
cide to choose ; or to fit my soul to bear, not unworthily, 
the weight of a kingly crown.” 

Aired lifted his mild eyes to Harold, and there were 
both pity and approval in his gaze, for he divined the 
carl. 


164 


II A R 0 L 1> 


“ Thou hast chosen the right course, my son ; and we 
will retire at once, and elect those with whom thou mayst 
freely confer, and by whose judgment thou mayst right- 
eously abide. ” 

The prelate turned, and with him went the conclave. 

Left alone with Haco, the last said, abruptly, — 

“ Thou wilt not be so indiscreet, O Harold, as to con- 
fess thy compelled oath to the fraudful Norman ?” 

“ That is my design, ” replied Harold, coldly. 

The son of Sweyn began to remonstrate, but the earl 
cut him short. 

“ If the Norman say that he has been deceived in 
Harold, never so shall say the men of England. Leave 
me. I know not why, Haco, but in thy presence, at 
times, there is a glamour as strong as in the spells of 
Hilda. Go, dear boy ; the fault is not in thee but in 
the superstitious infirmities of a man who hath once low- 
ered, or it may be, too highly strained, his reason to the 
things of a haggard fancy. Go ! and send to me my 
brother Gurth. I would have him alone of my House 
present at this solemn crisis of its fate.” 

Haco bowed his head, and went. 

In a few moments more, Gurth came in. To this pure 
and spotless spirit Harold had already related the events 
of his unhappy visit to the Norman ; and he felt, as the 
young chief pressed his hand, and looked on him with 
his clear and loving eyes, as if Honor made palpable 
stood by his side. 

Six of the ecclesiastics, most eminent for Church learn- 


HAROLD. 


165 


ing, — small as was that which they could boast, com- 
pared with the scholars of Normandy and the Papal 
States, but at least more intelligent and more free from 
mere formal monasticisra than most of their Saxon con- 
temporaries — and six of the chiefs most renowned for 
experience in war or council, selected under the sagacious 
promptings of Aired, accompanied that prelate to the 
presence of the earl. 

“ Close, thou 1 close ! close ! Gurth,” whispered Ha- 
rold : “ for this is a confession against man’s pride, and 
sorely doth it shame ; — so that I would have thy bold 
sinless heart beating near to mine.” 

Then, leaning his arm upon his brother’s shoulder, and 
in a voice, the first tones of which, as betraying earnest 
emotion, irresistibly chained and affected his noble au- 
dience, Harold began his tale. 

Various were the emotions, though all more akin to 
terror than repugnance, with which the listeners heard 
the earl’s plain and candid recital. 

Among the lay-chiefs the impression made by the com- 
pelled oath was comparatively slight : for it was the worst 
vice of the Saxon laws, to entangle all charges, from the 
smallest to the greatest, in a reckless multiplicity of 
oaths,* to the grievous loosening of the bonds of truth : 
and oaths then had become almost as much mere matter 
of legal form, as certain oaths — bad relic of those times ! 

* See the judicious remarks of Henry, “Hist, of Britain,” on 
this head. From the lavish abuse of oaths, perjury had come to 
be reckoned one of the national vices of the Saxons. 


HAROLD. 


— still existing in our parliamentary and collegiate pro- 
ceedings, are deemed by men, not otherwise dishonora- 
ble, even now. And to no kind of oath was more latitude 
given than to such as related to fealty to a chief : for 
these, in the constant rebellions which happened year 
after year, were openly violated, and without reproach. 
Not a sub-king in Wales who harried the border, not an 
earl who raised banner against the Basileus of Britain, 
but infringed his oath to be good man and true to the 
lord paramount; and even William the Norman himself 
never found his oath of fealty stand in his way, whenever 
he deemed it right and expedient to take arms against 
his suzerain of France. 

On the churchmen the impression was stronger and 
more serious : not that made by the oath itself, but by 
the relics on which the hand had been laid. They looked 
at each other, doubtful and appalled, when the earl 
ceased his tale ; while only among the laymen circled a 
murmur of mingled wrath at William’s bold design on 
their native land, and of scorn at the thought that an 
oath, surprised and compelled, should be made the in- 
strument of treason to a whole people. 

“ Thug,” said Harold, after a pause, “ thus have I 
made clear to you my conscience, and revealed to you 
the only obstacle between your offers and my choice. 
From the keeping of an oath so extorted, and so deadly 
to England, this venerable prelate and mine own soul 
have freed me. Whether as king or as subject, I shall 
alike revere the living and their long posterity more than 


HAROLD. 


167 


the dead men’s bones, and, with sword and with battle 
axe, hew out against the invader my best atonement for 
the lips’ weakness and the heart’s desertion. But whe- 
ther, knowing what hath passed, ye may not deem it 
safer for the land to elect another king, — this it is which, 
free and forethoughtful of every chance, ye should now 
decide.” 

With these words he stepped from the dais, and retired 
into the oratory that adjoined the chamber, followed by 
Gurth. The eyes of the priests then turned to Aired, 
and to them the prelate spoke as he had done before to 
Harold ; — he distinguished between the oath and its 
fulfilment — between the lesser sin and the greater — the 
one which the Church could absolve — the one which no 
Church had the right to exact, and which, if fulfilled, no 
penance could expiate. He owned frankly, nevertheless, 
that it was the difficulties so created, that had made him 
incline to the Atheling : but, convinced of that prince’s 
incapacity, even in the most ordinary times, to rule Eng- 
land, he shrank yet more from such a choice, when the 
swords of the Norman were already sharpening for con- 
test. Finally he said, “ If a man as fit to defend us as 
Harold can be found, let us prefer him : if not ” 

“There is no other man !” cried the thegns with one 
voice. “And,” said a wise old chief, “ had Harold sought 
to play a trick to secure the throne, he could not have 
devised one more sure than the tale he hath now told us. 
What ! just when we are most assured that the doughtiest 
and deadliest foe that our land can brave, waits but for 


168 


HAROLD. 


Edward’s death to enforce on us a stranger’s yoke- 
what ! shall we for that very reason deprive ourselves 01 
the only man able to resist him ? Harold hath taken an 
oath I God wot ! who among us have not taken some 
oath at law for which they have deemed it meet after- 
wards to do a penance or endow a convent ? The wisest 
means to strengthen Harold against that oath, is to show 
the moral impossibility of fulfilling it, by placing him on 
the throne. The best proof we can give to this insolent 
Norman that England is not for prince to leave, or sub- 
ject to barter, is to choose solemnly in our Witan the 
very chief whom his frauds prove to us that he fears the 
most. Why, William would laugh in his own sleeve to 
summon a king to descend from his throne to do him the 
homage which that king, in the different capacity of 
subject, had (we will grant, even willingly) promised to 
render.” 

This speech spoke all the thoughts of the laymen, and, 
with Alred’s previous remarks, reassured all the eccle- 
siastics. They were easily induced to believe that the 
usual Church penances, and ample Church gifts, would 
suffice for the insult offered to the relics ; and, — if they 
in so grave a case outstripped, in absolution, an autho- 
rity amply sufficing for all ordinary matters, — Harold, as 
king, might easily gain from the pope himself that full 
pardon and shrift, which, as mere earl, against the prince 
of the Normans, he would fail of obtaining. 

These or similar reflections soon terminated the sus- 
pense of the select council ; and Aired sought the earl 


HAROLD. 


169 




in the oratory, to summon him back to the conclave. 
The two brothers were kneeling side by side before the 
little altar ; and there was something inexpressibly touch- 
ing in their humble attitudes, their clasped supplicating 
hands, in that moment when the crown of England rested 
above their House. 

The brothers rose, and, at Alred’s sign, followed the 
prelate into the council-room. Aired briefly communi- 
cated the result of the conference ; and, with an aspect, 
and in a tone, free alike from triumph and indecision, 
Harold replied : — 

“ As ye will, so will I. Place me only where I can 
most serve the common cause Remain you now, know- 
ing my secret, a chosen and standing council : too great 
is my personal stake in this matter to allow my mind to 
be unbiassed ; judge ye, then, and decide for me in all 
things : your minds should be calmer and wiser than 
mine ; in all things I will abide by your counsel ; and 
thus I accept the trust of a nation’s freedom.” 

Each thegn then put his hand into Harold’s, aud called 
himself Harold’s man. 

“Now, more than ever,” said the wise old thegn who 
had before spoken, “will it be needful to heal all dissen- 
sion in the kingdom — to reconcile with us Mercia and 
Northumbria, and make the kingdom one against the foe. 
You, as Tostig’s brother, have done well to abstain from 
active interference ; you do well to leave it to us to 
negotiate the necessary alliance between all brave and 
good men.” 

II. — 15 


170 


HAROLD. 


“And to that end, as imperative for the public weal, 
you consent,” said Aired, thoughtfully, “to abide by our 
advice, whatever it be?” 

“Whatever it be, so that it serve England,” answered 
the earl. 

A smile, somewhat sad, flitted over the prelate's pale 
lips, and Harold was once more alone with Gurth. 


CHAPTER YII. 

The soul of all council and cabal on behalf of Harold, 
which had led to the determination of the principal 
chiefs, and which now succeeded it — was Haco. 

His rank as son of Sweyn, the first-born of Godwin’s 
house — a rank which might have authorized some pre- 
tensions on his own part, gave him all field for the exer- 
cise of an intellect, singularly keen and profound. Ac- 
customed to an atmosphere of practical state-craft in the 
Norman court, with faculties sharpened from boyhood by 
vigilance and meditation, he exercised an extraordinary 
influence over the simple understandings of the homely 
clergy and the uncultured thegns. Impressed with the 
conviction of his early doom, he felt no interest in the 
objects of others ; but equally believing that whatever of 
bright, and brave, and glorious, in his brief, condemned 
career, was to be reflected on him from the light of 
Harold’s destiny, the sole desire of a nature, which, under 


HAROLD. 


m 


other auspices, would have been intensely daring and 
ambitious, was to administer to Harold’s greatness. No 
prejudice, no principle, stood in the way of this dreary 
enthusiasm. As a father, himself on the brink of the 
grave, schemes for the worldly grandeur of the son, in 
whom he confounds and melts his own life, so this sombre 
and predestined man, dead to earth and to joy and the 
emotions of the heart, looked beyond his own tomb, to 
that existence in which he transferred and carried on his 
ambition. 

If the leading agencies of Harold’s memorable career 
might be, as it were, symbolized and allegorized, by the 
living beings with which it was connected — as Edith was 
the representative of stainless Truth — as Gurth was the 
type of dauntless Duty — as Hilda embodied aspiring 
Imagination — so Haco seemed the personation of 
Worldly Wisdom. And, cold in that worldly wisdom, 
Haco labored on, now conferring with Aired and the 
partisans of Harold ; now closeted with Edwin and Mor- 
car ; now gliding from the chamber of the sick king. — 
That wisdom foresaw all obstacles, smoothed all difficul- 
ties; ever calm, never resting ; marshalling and harmo- 
nizing the things to be, like the ruthless hand of a 
tranquil Fate. But there was one with whom Haco was 
more often than with all others — one whom the presence 
of Harold had allured to that anxious scene of intrigue, 
and whose heart leapt high at the hopes whispered from 
the smileless lips of Haco. 


m 


HAROLD. 


CHAPTER YIII. 

It was the second day after that which assured him 
the allegiance of the thegns, that a message was brought 
to Harold from the Lady Aldyth. She was in Oxford, 
at a convent, with her young daughter by the Welch 
king ; she prayed him to visit her. The earl, whose active 
mind, abstaining from the intrigues around him, was 
delivered up to the thoughts, restless and feverish, which 
haunt the hopes of all active minds, was not unwilling to 
escape awhile from himself. He went to Aldyth. The 
royal widow had laid by the signs of mourning ; she was 
dressed with the usual stately and loose-robed splendor 
of Saxon matrons, and all the proud beauty of her youth 
was restored to her cheek. At her feet was that daughter 
who afterwards married the Fleance so familiar to us in 
Shakspeare, and became the ancestral mother of those 
Scottish kings, who had passed, in pale shadows, across 
the eyes of Macbeth ; * by the side of that child, Harold, 
to his surprise, saw the ever ominous face of Haco. 

But, proud as was Aldyth, all pride seemed humbled 
into woman’s sweeter emotions at the sight of the earl, 
and she was at first unable to command words to answer 
his greeting. 

* And so, from Grytfyth, beheaded by his subjects, descended 
Charles Stuart. 


HAROLD. 


173 

Gradually, however, she warmed into cordial confidence. 
She touched lightly on her past sorrows ; she permitted 
it to be seen that her lot with the fierce Gryffyth had 
been one not more of public calamity than of domestic 
grief ; and that, in the natural awe and horror which the 
murder of her lord had caused, she felt rather for the ill- 
starred king than the beloved spouse. She then passed 
to the differences still existing between her house and 
Harold’s, and spoke well and wisely of the desire of the 
young earls to conciliate his grace and favor. 

While thus speaking, Morcar and Edwin, as if acci- 
dentally, entered, and their salutations of Harold were 
such as became their relative positions ; reserved, not 
distant — respectful, not servile. With the delicacy of 
high natures, they avoided touching on the cause before 
the Witan (fixed for the morrow), on which depended 
their earldoms or their exile. 

Harold was pleased by their bearing, and attracted 
towards them by the memory of the affectionate words 
that had passed between him and Leofric, their illustrious 
grandsire, over his father’s corpse. He thought then of 
his own prayer: “Let there be peace between thine and 
mine ! ” and looking at their fair and stately youth, and 
noble carriage, he could not but feel that the men of 
Northumbria and of Mercia had chosen well. The dis- 
course, however, was naturally brief, since thus made 
general ; the visit soon ceased, and the brothers attended 
Harold to the door, with the courtesy of the times. Then 
15 * 


m 


HAROLD. 


Haco said, with that faint movement of the lips which 
was his only approach to a smile, 

“Will ye not, noble thegns, give your hands to my 
kinsman ? ” 

“ Surely,” said Edwin, the handsomer and more gentle 
of the two, and who, having a poet’s nature, felt a poet’s 
enthusiasm for the gallant deeds even of a rival, — “sure- 
ly, if the earl will accept the hands of those who trust 
never to be compelled to draw sword against England’s 
hero.” 

Harold stretched forth his hand in reply, and that cor- 
dial and immemorial pledge of our national friendships 
was interchanged. 

Gaining the street, Harold said to his nephew, 

“ Standing as I do towards the young earls, that ap- 
peal of thine had been better omitted.” 

“Nay,” answered Haco ; “their cause is already pre- 
judged in their favor. And thou must ally thyself with 
the heirs of Leofric, and the successors of Si ward.” 

Harold made no answer. There was something in the 
positive tone of this beardless youth that displeased him ; 
but he remembered that Haco was the son of Sweyn, 
Godwin’s first-born, and that, but for Sweyn’s crimes, 
Haco might have held the place in England he held him- 
self, and looked to the same august destinies beyond 

In the evening a messenger from the Roman house 
arrived, with two letters for Harold ; one from Hilda, 
that contained but these words: “Again peril menaces 


HAROLD. 1*75 

thee, but in the shape of good. Beware I and, above all, 
of the evil that wears the form of wisdom.” 

The other letter was from Edith ; it was long for the 
letters of that age, and every sentence spoke a heart 
wrapped in his. 

Reading the last, Hilda’s warnings were forgotten. 
The picture of Edith — the prospect of a power that 
might at last effect their union, and reward her long de- 
votion — rose before him, to the exclusion of wilder fan- 
cies and loftier hopes ; and his sleep that night was full 
of youthful and happy dreams. 

The next day the Witan met. The meeting was less 
stormy than had been expected ; for the minds of most 
men were made up, and so far as Tostig was interested, 
the facts were too evident and notorious, the witnesses 
too numerous, to leave any option to the judges. Ed- 
ward, on whom alone Tostig had relied, had already, with 
his ordinary vacillation, been swayed towards a right de- 
cision, partly by the counsels of Aired and his other 
prelates, and especially by the . representations of Haco, 
whose grave bearing and profound dissimulation had 
gained a singular influence over the formal and melan- 
choly king. 

By some previous compact or understanding between 
the opposing parties, there was no attempt, however, to 
push matters against the offending Tostig to vindictive 
extremes. There was no suggestion of outlawry, or pun- 
ishment, beyond the simple deprivation of the earldom he 
had abused. And in return for this moderation on the 


m 


HAROLD 


one side, the other agreed to support and ratify the new 
election of the Northumbrians. Morcar was thus formally 
invested with the vice-kingship of that great realm ; while 
Edwin was confirmed in the earldom of the principal part 
:f Mercia. 

On the announcement of these decrees, which were 
received with loud applause by all the crowd assembled 
to hear them, Tostig, rallying round him his house-carles, 
left the town. He went first to Githa, with whom his 
wife had sought refuge ; and, after a long conference 
with his mother, he, and his haughty countess, journeyed 
to the sea-coast, and took ship for Flanders. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Gurth and Harold were seated in close commune in 
the earl’s chamber, at an hour long after the complin (or 
second vespers), when Aired entered unexpectedly. The 
old man’s face was unusually grave, and Harold’s pene- 
trating eye saw that he was gloomy with matters of great 
m ,ment. 

“ Harold,” said the prelate, seating himself, “ the hour 
has come to test thy truth, when thou saidst that thou 
wert ready to make all sacrifice to thy land, and further, 
that thou wouldst abide by the counsel of those free from 
thy passions, and looking on thee only as the instrument 
of England’s weal.” 


HAROLD. 


IT I 

11 Speak on, father, ” said Harold, turning somewhat 
pale at the solemnity of the address ; “ I am ready, if the 
council so desire, to remain a subject, and aid in the 
choice of a worthier king.” 

“Thou divinest me ill,” answered Aired; “I do not 
call on thee to lay aside the crown, but to crucify ths 
heart. The decree of the Witan assigns Mercia and 
Northumbria to the sons of Algar. The old demarca- 
tions of the heptarchy, as thou knowest, are scarce worn 
out ; it is even now less one monarchy, than various 
states retaining their own laws, and inhabited by different 
races, who, under the sub-kings called earls, acknowledge 
a supreme head in the Basileus of Britain. Mercia hath 
its March law and its prince ; Northumbria its Dane law, 
and its leader. To elect a king without civil war, these 
realms, for so they are, must unite with and sanction the 
Witans elsewhere held. Only thus can the kingdom be 
firm against foes without and anarchy within ; and the 
more so, from the alliance between the new earls of those 
great provinces and the House of Gryffyth, which still 
lives in Caradoc his son. What if at Edward’s death 
Mercia and Northumbria refuse to sanction thy acces- 
sion ? What, if, when all our force were needed against 
the Norman, the Welch broke loose from their hills, and 
the Scots from their moors ! Malcolm of Cumbria, now 
King of Scotland, is Tostig’s dearest friend, while his 
people side with Morcar. Yerily these are dangers enow 
for anew king, even if William’s sword slept in its sheath.” 

“ Thou speakest the words of wisdom,” said Harold, 
15* 2 l 


178 HAROLD. 

11 but I knew beforehand that he who wears a crown mus. 
abjure repose.” 

“ Not so ; there is one way, and but one, to reconcile 
all England to thy dominion — to win to thee not the 
cold neutrality but the eager zeal of Mercia and North- 
umbria ; to make the first guard thee from the Welch, 
the last be thy rampart against the Scot. In a word, 
thou must ally thyself with the blood of these young 
earls; thou must wed with Aldyth their sister.” 

The earl sprang to his feet aghast. 

“No — no !” he exclaimed; “not that! — any sacrifice 
but that ! — rather forfeit the throne than resign the heart 
that leans on mine ! Thou knowest my pledge to Edith, 
my cousin ; pledge hallowed by the faith of long years. 
No — no, have mercy — human mercy; I can wed no 
other ! — any sacrifice but that ! ” 

The good prelate, though not unprepared for this 
burst, was much moved by its genuine anguish ; but, 
steadfast to his purpose, he resumed : — 

“Alas, my son, so say we all in the hour of trial — 
any sacrifice but that which duty and Heaven ordain. 
Resign the throne thou canst not, or thou leavest the 
land without a ruler, distracted by rival claims and 
ambitions, an easy prey to the Norman. Resign thy 
human affections thou canst and must ; and the more, 0 
Harold, that even if duty compelled not this new alliance, 
the old tie is one of sin, which, as king, and as high 
example in high place to all men, thy conscience within, 
and the Church without, summoning thee to break. How 


HAROLD. 


m 

purify the erring lives of the churchmen, if thyself a reoel 
to the Church ? and if thou hast thought that thy power 
as king might prevail on the Roman Pontiff to grant 
dispensation for wedlock within the degrees, and that so 
thou mightest legally confirm thy now illegal troth ; be- 
think thee well, thou hast a more dread aud urgent boon 
now to ask — in absolution from thine oath to William. 
Roth prayers, surely, our Roman father will not grant. 
Wilt thou choose that which absolves from sin, or that 
which consults but thy carnal affections ? ” 

Harold covered his face with his hands, and groaned 
aloud in his strong agony. 

“Aid me, Gurth,” cried Aired, “thou, sinless and spot- 
less ; thou, in whose voice a brother’s love can blend with 
a Christian’s zeal ; aid me, Gurth, to melt the stubborn 
but to comfort the human, heart.” 

Then Gurth, with a strong effort over himself, knelt by 
Harold’s side, and in strong simple language, backed 
the representations of the priest. In truth, all argument 
drawn from reason, whether in the state of the land, or 
the new duties to which Harold was committed, were on 
the one side, and unanswerable ; on the other, was but 
that mighty resistance which love opposes ever to reason. 
And Harold continued to murmur, while his hands con- 
cealed his face. 

“Impossible ! — she who trusted, who trusts — who so 
>oves — she whose whole youth hath been consumed in 
patient faith in me 1 — Resign her ! and for another ! I 
cannot — I cannot. Take from me the throne I — Oh 


180 


HAROLD. 


vain heart of man, that so long desired its own curse 1 — 
Crown the Atheling ; my manhood shall defend his youth. 

— But not this offering! No, no — I will hot ! ” 

It were tedious to relate the rest of that prolonged 
and agitated conference. All that night, till the last 
stars waned, and the bells of prime were heard from 
church and convent, did the priest and the brother alter- 
nately plead and remonstrate, chide and soothe ; and still 
Harold’s heart clung to Edith’s, with its bleeding roots. 
At length they, perhaps not unwisely, left him to himself; 
and as, whispering low their hopes and their fears of the 
result of the self-conflict, they went forth from the con- 
vent, Haco joined them in the court-yard, and while his 
cold mournful eye scanned the faces of priest and brother, 
he asked them “ how they had sped ? ” 

Aired shook his head and answered — 

“ Man’s heart is more strong in the flesh than true to 
the spirit.” 

“ Pardon me, father,” said Haco, “ if I suggest that 
your most eloquent and persuasive ally in this, were 
Edith herself. Start not so incredulously ; it is because 
she loves the earl more than her own life, that — once 
show her that the earl’s safety, greatness, honor, duty, 
lie in release from his troth to her — that nought save his 
erring love resists your councils and his country’s claims 

— and Edith’s voice will have more power than yours.” 

The virtuous prelate, more acquainted with man’s 

selfishness than woman’s devotion, only replied by an 


HAROLD. 


18l 

impatient gesture. But Gurth, lately wedded to a woman 
worthy of him, said gravely — 

41 Haco speaks well, my father ; and methinks it is due 
to both that Edith should not, unconsulted, be abandoned 
by him for whom she has abjured all others ; to whom 
she has been as devoted in heart as if sworn wife already . 
Leave we awhile my brother, never the slave of passion, 
and with whom England must at last prevail over all 
selfish thought ; and ride we at once to tell to Edith 
what we have told to him ; or rather — woman can best 
in such a case speak to woman — let us tell all to our lady 
— Edward’s wife, Harold’s sister, and Edith’s holy god- 
mother — and abide by her counsel. On the third day 
we shall return.” 

“Go we so charged, noble Gurth,” said Haco, ob- 
serving the prelate’s reluctant countenance, “ and leave 
we our reverend father to watch over the earl’s sharp 
struggle.” 

“ Thou speakest well, my son,” said the prelate, 44 and 
thy mission suits the young and the layman better than 
the old and the priest.” 

“ Let us go, Haco,” said Gurth, briefly. 44 Deep, sore, 
and lasting, is the wound I inflict on the brother of my 
love ; and my own heart bleecs in his ; but he himself 
hath taught me to hold Englan: as a Roman held Rome.” 


II. — 16 


182 


HAROLD. 


CHAPTER X. 

It is the nature of that happiness which we derive 
from our affections to be calm ; its immense influence 
upon our outward life is not known till it is troubled or 
withdrawn. By placing his heart at peace, man leaves 
vent to his energies and passions, and permits their cur- 
rent to flow towards the aims and objects which interest 
labor or arouse ambition. Thus absorbed in the occu- 
pation without, he is lulled into a certain forgetfulness 
of the value of that internal repose which gives health 
and vigor to the faculties he employs abroad. But once 
mar this scarce-felt, almost invisible harmony, and the 
discord extends to the remotest chords of our active 
being. Say to the busiest man whom thou seest in mart, 
camp, or senate, who seems to thee all intent upon his 
worldly schemes, “Thy home is reft from thee — thy 
household gods are shattered — that sweet noiseless con- 
tent in the regular mechanism of the springs, which set 
the large wheels of thy soul into movement is thine 
nevermore !” — and straightway all exertion seems rob- 
bed of its object — all aim of its alluring charm. 
“Othello’s occupation is gone!” With a start, that 
man will awaken from the sun-lit visions of noontide am- 
bition, and exclaim in his desolate anguish, “ What are 
all the rewards to my labor, now thou hast robbed me of 


HAROLD. 


183 


repose ? How little are all the gains wrung from strife,, 
in a world of rivals and foes, compared to the smile 
whose sweetness I knew not till it was lost ; and the 
sense of security from mortal ill which I took from the 
trust and sympathy of love!” 

Thus was it with Harold in that bitter and terrible 
crisis of his fate. This rare and spiritual love, which 
had existed on hope, which had never known fruition, 
had become the subtlest, the most exquisite part of his 
being ; this love, to the full and holy possession of which, 
every step in his career seemed to advance him, was it 
now to be evermore reft from his heart, his existence, at 
the very moment when he had deemed himself most 
secure of its rewards — when he most needed its consola- 
tions ? Hitherto, in that love he had lived in the future 
— he had silenced the voice of the turbulent human pas- 
sion by the whisper of the patient angel, “A little while 
yet, and thy bride sits beside thy throne !” Now what 
was that future ! how joyless, how desolate ! The 
splendor vanished from Ambition — the glow from the 
face of Fame — the sense of Duty remained alone to 
counteract the pleadings of Affection ; but Duty, no 
longer dressed in all the gorgeous colorings it took be- 
fore from glory and power — Duty stern, and harsh, and 
terrible, as the iron frown of a Grecian Destiny. 

And thus, front to front with that Duty, he sate alone 
one evening, while his lips murmured, “ Oh fatal voyage, 
oh lying truth in the hell-born prophecy ! this, then, this 
was the wife my league with the Norman was to win to 


184 


HAROLD. 


my arms ! 1 In the streets below were heard the tramp 
of busy feet hurrying homeward, and the confused up- 
roar of joyous wassail from the various resorts of enter 
tainment crowded by careless revellers. And the tread 
of steps mounted the stairs without his door, and there 
paused ; — and there was the murmur of two voices with- 
out ; one the clear voice of Gurth, — one softer and more 
troubled. The earl lifted his head from his bosom, and 
his heart beat quick at the faint and scarce heard sound 
of that last voice. The door opened gently, gently : a 
form entered, and halted on the shadow of the threshold ; 
the door closed again by a hand from without. The earl 
rose to his feet, tremulously, and the next moment Edith 
was at his knees ; her hood thrown back, her face up- 
turned to his, bright with unfaded beauty, serene with 
the grandeur of self-martyrdom. 

“0 Harold 1” she exclaimed, “dost thou remember 
that in the old time I said, ‘ Edith had loved thee less, 
if thou hadst not loved England more than Edith? 5 
Recall, recall those words. And deemest thou now that 
I, who have gazed for years into thy clear soul, and 
learned there to sun my woman’s heart in the light of all 
glories native to noblest man, — deemest thou, 0 Harold, 
that I am weaker now than then, when I scarce knew 
what England and glory were?” 

“Edith, Edith, what wouldst thou say ? — What know- 
est thou ? — Who hath told thee ? — What led thee hither, 
to take part against thyself ? ” 

“ It matters not who told me ; I know all. What led 


HAROLD. 


185 


me? Mine own soul, and mine own love i” Springing 
to her feet, and clasping his hand in both hen, while she 
looked into his face, she resumed : “ I do not s\v to thee, 
‘ Grieve not to part ; ’ for I know too well thy faith, thy 
tenderness — thy heart, so grand and so soft. But I do 
say, ‘ Soar above thy grief, and be more than man for 
the sake of men ! ’ Yes, Harold, for this last time I be- 
hold thee. I clasp thy hand, I lean on thy heart, I hear 
its beating, and I shall go hence without a tear.” 

“ It cannot, it shall not be ! ” exclaimed Harold, pas* 
sionately. u Thou deceivest thyself in the divine pas- 
sion of the hour: thou canst not foresee the utterness 
of the desolation to which thou wouldst doom thy life. 
We were betrothed to each other by ties strong as those 
of the Church, — over the grave of the dead, under the 
vault of heaven, in the form of ancestral faith ! The 
bond cannot be broken. If England demands me, let 
England take me with the ties it were unholy, even for 
her sake, to rend ! ” 

“Alas, alas ! ” faltered Edith, while the flush on her 
cheek sank into mournful paleness. “ It is not as thou 
sayest. So has thy love sheltered me from the world — 
so utter was my youth’s ignorance or my heart’s oblivion 
of the stern laws of man, that when it pleased thee that 
we should love each other, I could not believe that that 
love was sin; and that it was sn hitherto I will not 
think; — now it hath become one.” 

u No, no ! ” cried Harold ; all the eloquence on which 
thousands had hung, thrilled and spell-bound, deserting 
16 * 


186 


HAROLD. 


him in that hour of need, and leaving to him only broken 
exclamations, — fragments, in each of which his heart 
itself seemed shivered ; “ no, no, — not sin ! — sin only to 
forsake thee. — Hush ! hush ! — This is a dream — wait 
till we wake ! True heart ! noble soul ! — I will not part 
from thee ! ” 

“ But I from thee ! And rather than thou shouldst be 
lost for my sake — the sake of woman — to honor and 
conscience, and all for which thy sublime life sprang from 
the hands of Nature — if not the cloister, may I find the 
grave ! — Harold, to the last let me be worthy of thee ; 
and feel, at least, that if not thy wife — that bright, that 
blessed fate not mine ! — still, remembering Edith, just 
men may say, ‘ She would not have dishonored the hearth 
of Harold.’ ” 

“ Host thou know,” said the earl, striving to speak 
calmly, “ dost thou know that it is not only to resign 
thee that they demand — that it is to resign thee, and for 
another ? ” 

“ I know it,” said Edith ; and two burning tears, des- 
pite her strong and preternatural self-exaltation, swelled 
from the dark fringe, and rolled slowly down the color- 
less cheek, as she added, with proud voice, “I know it: 
but that other is not Aldyth, it is England 1 In her, in 
Aldyth, behold the dear cause of thy native land ; with 
her enweave the love which thy native land should com- 
mand. So thinking, thou art reconciled, and I consoled 
It is not for woman that thou desertest Edith.” 


HAROLD. 


18 T 


“ Hear, and take from those lips the strength and the 
valor that belong to the name of Hero ! ” said a deep 
and clear voice behind ; and Garth, — who, whether dis- 
trusting the result of an interview so prolonged, or ten- 
derly desirous to terminate its pain, had entered unob- 
served, — approached, and wound his arm caressingly 
round his brother. “ Oh Harold ! ” he said, “ dear to me 
as the drops in my heart is my young bride, newly wed ; 
but if for one tithe of the claims that now call thee to 
the torture and trial — yea, if but for one hour of good 
service to freedom and law — I would consent without a 
groan to behold her no more. And if men asked me 
how I could so conquer man’s affections, I would point 
to thee, and say, * So Harold taught my youth by his 
lessons, and my manhood by his life.’ Before thee, visi- 
ble, stand Happiness and Love, but with them, Shame • 
before thee, invisible, stands Woe, but with Woe are 
England and eternal Glory ! Choose between them.” 

“ He hath chosen,” said Edith, as Harold turned to 
'he wall, and leaned against it, hiding his face ; then, 
approaching softly, she knelt, lifted to her lips the hem 
of his robe, and kissed it with devout passion. 

Harold turned suddenly, and opened his arms. Edith 
resisted not that mute appeal ; she rose, and fell on his 
breast, sobbing. 

Wild and speechless was that last embrace. The moon, 
which had witnessed their union by the heathen grave, 
now rose above the tower of the Christian church, and 
looked wan and cold upon their parting. 


188 


HAROLD. 


Solemn and clear paused the orb — a cloud passed over 
the disk — and Edith was gone. The cloud rolled away, 
and again the moon shone forth ; and where had knelt 
the fair form, and looked the last look of Edith, stood 
the motionless image, and gazed the solemn eye, of the 
dark son of Sweyn. But Harold leant on the breast of 
Gurth, and saw not who had supplanted the soft and 
loving Eylgia of his life — saw nought in the universe 
at the blank of desolation 1 


BOOK ELEVENTH. 


THE NORMAN SCHEMER, AND THE NORWEGIAN SEA-KING 


CHAPTER I. 

It was the eve of the 5th of January — the eve of the 
day announced to King Edward as that of his deliver- 
ance from earth ; and whether or not the prediction had 
wrought its own fulfilment on the fragile frame and sus- 
ceptible nerves of the king, the last of the line of Cerdic 
was fast passing into the solemn shades of eternity. 

Without the walls of the palace, through the whole 
city of London, the excitement was indescribable. All 
the river before the palace was crowded with boats ; all 
the broad space on the Isle of Thorny itself, thronged 
with anxious groups. But a few days before, the new- 
built abbey had been solemnly consecrated ; with the 
completion of that holy edifice, Edward’s life itself 
seemed done. Like the kings of Egypt, he had built his 
tomb. 

Within the palace, if possible, still greater was the 
agitation, more dread the suspense. Lobbies, halls, cor- 
ridors, stairs, ante-rooms, were filled with churchmen and 

(189) 


190 


HAROLD. 


thegns. Nor was it alone for news of the king’s state 
that their brows were so knit, that their breath came and 
went so short. It is not when a great chief is dying, that 
men compose their minds to deplore a loss. That comes 
long after, when the worm is at its work, and comparison 
between the dead and the living often rights the one to 
wrong the other. But while the breath is struggling, 
and the eye glazing, life busy in the by-standers, mur- 
murs, "Who shall be the heir?” And, in this instance, 
never had suspense been so keenly wrought up into hope 
and terror ; for the news of Duke William’s designs had 
now spread far and near; and awful was the doubt, whe- 
ther the abhorred Norman should receive his sole sanction 
to so arrogant a claim from the parting assent of Ed- 
ward. Although, as we have seen, the crown was not 
absolutely within the bequests of a dying king, but at 
the will of the Witan, still, in circumstances so unparal- 
leled, the utter failure of all natural heirs, save a boy 
feeble in mind as body, and half foreign by birth and 
rearing ; the love borne by Edward to the Church ; and 
the sentiments, half of pity, half of reverence, with which 
he was regarded throughout the land ; — his dying word 
would go far to influence the council and select the suc- 
cessor. Some whispering to each other, with pale lips, 
all the dire predictions then current in men’s mouths and 
breasts ; some in moody silence ; all lifted eager eyes, as, 
from time to time, a gloomy Benedictine passed in the 
direction to or fro the king’s chamber. 

In that chamber, traversing the past of eight centuries, 


HAROLD. 


191 


enter we with hushed and noiseless feet — a room known 
to us in many a later scene and legend of England’s 
troubled history, as “ The Painted Chamber,” long 
called “ The Confessor’s.” At the farthest end of that 
long and lofty space, raised upon a regal platform, and 
roofed with regal canopy, was the bed of death. 

At the foot stood Harold ; on one side knelt Edith, the 
king’s lady; at the other Aired; while Stigand stood 
near — the holy rood in his hand — and the abbot of the 
new monastery of Westminster by Stigand’s side ; and 
all the greatest thegns, including Morcar and Edwin, 
Gurth and Leofwine, all the more illustrious prelates and 
abbots, stood also on the dais. 

In the lower end of the hall, the king’s physician was 
warming a cordial over the brazier, and some of the su- 
bordinate officers of the household were standing in the 
niches of the deep-set windows; and they — not great 
eno’ for other emotions than those of human love for 
their kindly lord — they wept. 

The king, who had already undergone the last holy 
offices of the Church, was lying quite quiet, his eyes half 
closed, breathing low but regularly. He had been 
speechless the two preceding days ; on this he had uttered 
a few words, which showed returning consciousness. His 
hand, reclined on the coverlid, was clasped in his wife’s, 
w T ho was praying fervently. Something in the touch of 
her hand, or the sound of her murmur, stirred the king 
from the growing lethargy, and his eyes opening, fixed 
on the kneeling lady. 


192 


HAROLD. 


“.AM” said he, faintly, “ever good, ever meek! 
Think not I did not love thee ; hearts will be read 
yonder; we shall have our guerdon.” 

The lady looked up through her streaming tears. Ed- 
ward released his hand, and laid it on her head, as in 
benediction. Then, motioning to the abbot of Westmin- 
ster, he drew from his finger the ring which the palmers 
had brought to him,* and murmured scarce audibly — 

“ Be this kept in the House of St. Peter in memory of 
me ! ” 

“He is alive now to us — speak — ” whispered more 
than one thegn, one abbot, to Aired and to Stigand. 
And Stigand, as the harder and more worldly man of the 
two, moved up, and bending over the pillow, between 
Aired and the king, said — 

“ 0 royal son, about to win the crown to which that 
of earth is but an idiot’s wreath of withered leaves, not 
yet may thy soul forsake us. Whom commendest thou 
to us as shepherd to thy bereaven flock ? whom shall we 
admonish to tread in those traces thy footsteps leave 
below ? ” 

The king made a slight gesture of impatience ; and the 
queen, forgetful of all but her womanly sorrow, raised 
her eye and finger in reproof that the dying was thus dis- 
turbed. But the stake was too weighty, the suspense 
too keen, for that reverent delicacy in those around ; and 


* Brompt. Chron. 


HAROLD 


193 


the thegns pressed on each other, and a murmur rose, 
which murmured the name of Harold. 

“Bethink thee, my son,” said Aired, in a tender voice, 
tremulous with emotion ; “ the young Atheling is too 
much an infant yet for these anxious times.” 

Edward signed his head in assent. 

“Then,” said the Norman bishop of London, who till 
that moment had stood in the rear, almost forgotten 
amongst the crowd of Saxon prelates, but who himself 
had been all eyes and ears. ' “ Then,” said Bishop Wil- 
liam, advancing, “if thine own royal line so fail, who so 
near to thy love, who so worthy to succeed, as William 
thy cousin, the count of the Normans?” 

Dark was the scowl on the brow of every thegn, and a 
muttered “No, no: never the Norman!” was heard 
distinctly. Harold’s face flushed, aud his hand was on 
* the hilt of his ateghar. But no other sign gave he of 
his interest in the question. 

The king lay for some moments silent, but evidently 
striving to re-collect his thoughts. Meanwhile, the two 
arch-prelates bent over him — Stigand eagerly, Aired 
fondly. 

Then, raising himself on one arm, while with the other 
he pointed to Harold at the foot of the bed the king 
said — 

“Your hearts, I see, are with Harold the earl: so be 
it.” 

At those words he fell back on his pillow j a loud 
II. — 17 2m 


194 


HAROLD. 


shriek burst from his wife’s lips ; all crowded around ; he 
lay as the dead. 

At the cry, and the indescribable movement of the 
throng, the physician came quick from the lower part of 
the hall. He made his way abruptly to the bed-side, and 
said, chidingly, “ Air, give him air.” The throng parted, 
the leach moistened the king’s pale lips with the cordial, 
but no breath seemed to come forth, no pulse seemed to 
beat ; and while the two prelates knelt before the human 
body and by the blessed rood, the rest descended the 
dais, and hastened to depart. Harold only remained ; 
but he had passed from the foot to the head of the bed. 

The crowd had gained the centre of the hall, when a 
sound that startled them, as if it had come from the 
grave, chained every foot-step — the sound of the king’s 
voice, loud, terribly distinct, and full, as with the vigor 
of youth restored. All turned their eyes, appalled ; all 
stood spell-bound. 

There sate the king upright on the bed, his face seen 
above the kneeling prelates, and his eyes bright and 
shining down the hall. 

“Yea,” he said, deliberately, “yea, as this shall be a 
real vision or a false illusion, grant me, Almighty One, 
the power of speech to tell it.” 

He paused a moment, and thus resumed : 

“ It was on the banks of the frozen Seine, this day 
thirty-and-one winters ago, that two holy monks, to 
whom the gift of prophecy was vouchsafed, told me of 
direful woes that should fall on England : ' For Grod,’ 


HAROLD. 


195 


said they, ‘ after thy death, has delivered England into 
the hands of the enemy, and fiends shall wander over the 
land.’ Then I asked in my sorrow, ‘Can nought avert 
the doom ? and may not my people free themselves by 
» repentance, like the Ninevites of old ? ’ And the Prophets 
answered, ‘Nay, nor shall the calamity cease, and the 
curse be completed, till a green tree be sundered in twain, 
and the part cut off carried away ; yet move, of itself, to 
the ancient trunk, unite to the stem, bud out with the 
blossom, and stretch forth its fruit. So said the monks, 
and even now, ere I spoke, I saw them again, there 
standing mute, and with the paleness of dead men, by 
the side of my bed ! ” 

These words were said so calmly, and as it were so 
rationally, that their import became doubly awful from 
the cold precision of the tone. A shudder passed through 
the assembly, and each man shrank from the king’s eye, 
which seemed to each man to dwell on himself. Sud- 
denly that eye altered in its cold beam ; suddenly the 
voice changed its deliberate accent ; the grey hairs 
seemed to bristle erect, the whole face to work with horror ; 
the arms stretched forth, the form writhed on the couch, 
distorted fragments from the older Testament rushed 
from the lips: “ San guelac ! Savguelac ! — the Lake of 
Blood,” shrieked forth the dying king; “the Lord hath 
bent his bow — the Lord hath bared his sword. He 
comes down as a warrior to war, and his wrath is in the 
steel and the flame. He boweth the mountains, and 
comes down, and darkness is under his feet!” 


196 


HAROLD. 


As if revived but for these tremendous denunciations, 
while the last word left his lips the frame collapsed, the 
eyes set, and the king fell a corpse in the arms of Ha- 
rold. 

But one smile of the sceptic or the world-man was 
seen on the paling lips of those present : that smile was 
not on the lips of warriors and men of mail. It distorted 
the sharpened features of Stigand, the world-man and 
the miser, as, passing down, and amidst the group, he 
said, “ Tremble ye at the dreams of 'a sick old man ?” 


CHAPTER II. 

The time of year customary for the National Assem- 
bly ; the recent consecration of Westminster, for which 
Edward had convened all his chief spiritual lords, the 
anxiety felt for the infirm state of the king, and the in- 
terest as to the impending succession — all concurred to 
permit the instantaneous meeting of a Witan worthy, 
from rank and numbers, to meet the emergency of the 
time, and proceed to the most momentous election ever 
yet known in England. The thegns and prelates met in 
haste. Harold’s marriage with Aldyth, which had taken 
place but a few weeks before, had united all parties with 
his own ; not a claim counter to the great earl’s was ad- 
vanced ; the choice was unanimous. The necessity of 
terminating at such a crisis all suspense throughout the 


HA ROLD. 


W 


kingdom, and extinguishing the danger of all counter 
intrigues, forbade to men thus united any delay in solem- 
nizing their decision ; and the august obsequies of Ed- 
ward were followed on the same day by the coronation 
of Harold. 

It was in the body of the mighty Abbey Church, not 
indeed as we see it now, after successive restorations and 
remodellings, but simple in its long rows of Saxon arch 
and massive column, blending the first Teuton with the 
last Roman masonries, that the crowd of the Saxon free- 
men assembled to honor the monarch of their choice. 
First Saxon king, since England had been one monarchy, 
selected not from the single House of Cerdic — first 
Saxon king, not led to the throne by the pale shades of 
fabled ancestors tracing their descent from the Father- 
god of the Teuton, but by the spirits that never know 
a grave — the arch-eternal givers of crowns and founders 
of dynasties — Yalor and Fame. 

Aired and Stigand, the two great prelates of the realm, 
had conducted Harold to the church,* and up the aisle 

* It seems by the coronation service of Ethelred II., still extant, 
that two bishops officiated in the crowning of the king; and hence, 
perhaps, the discrepancy in the chroniclers, some contending that 
Harold was crowned by Aired, others, by Stigand. It is notice- 
able, however, that it is the apologists of the Normans who assign 
that office to Stigand, who was in disgrace with the pope, and 
deemed no lawful bishop. Thus, in the Bayeux tapestry, the label, 
“Stigand,” is significantly affixed to the officiating prelate, as if to 
convey insinuation that Harold was not lawfully crowned. Flor- 
ence, by far the best authority, says distinctly, that Harold was 
crowned by Aired. The ceremonial of the coronation described in 

17 * 


198 


HAROLD. 


to the altar, followed by the chiefs of the Witan in their 
long robes; and the clergy with their abbots and bishops 
sung the anthems — “Fermetur manus tua ,” and “ Gloria 
Patri. ” 

And now the music ceased ; Harold prostrated him- 
self before the altar, and the sacred melody burst forth 
with the great hymn, “ Te Deum” 

As it ceased, prelate and thegn raised their chief from 
the floor, and in imitation of the old custom of Teuton 
and Northman — when the lord of their armaments was 
borne on shoulder and shield — Harold mounted a plat- 
form, and rose in full view of the crowd. 

“ Thus,” said the arch-prelate, “ we choose Harold 
son of Godwin for lord and for king.” And the thegns 
drew round, and placed hand on Harold’s knee, and cried 
aloud, “We choose thee, 0 Harold, for lord and for 
king.” And row by row, line by line, all the multitude 
shouted forth, “ We choose thee, 0 Harold, for lord and 
king.” So there he stood with his calm brow, facing all, 
Monarch of England, and Basileus of Britain. 

Now unheeded amidst the throng, and leaning against 
a column in the arches of the aisle, was a woman with 
her veil round her face ; and she lifted the veil for a 
moment to gaze on that lofty brow, and the tears were 
streaming fast down her cheek, but her face was not sad. 

“ Let the vulgar not see, to pity or scorn thee, daughte 


the text, is for the most part given on the authority of the “Cotton 
MS.,” quoted by Sharon Turner, vol. iii. 151. 


HAROLD. 


199 


of kings as great as he who abandons and forsakes 
thee!” murmured a voice in her ear; and the form of 
Hilda, needing no support from column or wall, rose 
erect by the side of Edith. Edith bowed her head and 
lowered the veil, as the king descended the platform and 
stood again by the altar, while clear through the hushed 
assembly rang the words of his triple promise to his 
people : — 

“Peace to his Church and the Christian flock. 

“ Interdict of rapacity and injustice. 

“ Equity and mercy in his judgments, as God the gra- 
cious and just might show mercy to him.” 

And deep from the hearts of thousands came the low 
“Amen.” 

Then after a short prayer, which each prelate repeated, 
the crowd saw afar the glitter of the crown held over the 
head of the king. The voice of the consecrator was heard 
low till it came to the words “ So potently and royally 
may he rule, against all visible and invisible foes, that 
the royal throne of the Angles and Saxons may not de- 
sert his sceptre.” 

As the prayer ceased, came the symbolical rite of 
anointment. Then pealed the sonorous organ,* and s' 
emn along the aisles rose the anthem that closed with 
the chorus, which the voice of the multitude swelled, 
“ May the king live for ever ! ” Then the crown that 
nad gleamed in the trembling hand of the prelate, rested 


* Introduced into our churches in the n'nth century. 


200 


HAROLD. 


firm in its splendor on the front of the king. And the 
sceptre of rule, and the rod of justice, “to soothe the 
pious and terrify the bad,” were placed in the royal hands. 
And the prayer and the blessings were renewed, — till 
the close ; “ Bless, Lord, the courage of this prince, and 
prosper the works of his hand. With his horn, as the 
horn of the rhinoceros, may he blow the waters to the 
extremities of the earth ; and may He who has ascended 
to the skies be his aid for ever ! ” 

Then Hilda stretched forth her hand to lead Edith from 
the place. But Edith shook her head and murmured, — 

“But once again, but once!” and with involuntary 
step moved on. 

Suddenly, close where she paused, the crowd parted, 
and down the narrow lane so formed amidst the wedged 
and breathless crowd came the august procession ; — pre- 
late and thegn swept on from the church to the palace ; 
and alone, with firm and measured step, the diadem on 
his brow, the sceptre in his hand, came the king. Edith 
checked the rushing impulse at her heart, but she bent 
forward, with veil half drawn aside, and so gazed on that 
face and form of more than royal majesty, fondly, proudly. 
The king swept on and saw her not ; love lived no more 
for him. 


HAROLD. 


202 


CHAPTER III. 

The boat shot over the royal Thames. Borne along 
the waters, the shouts and the hymns of swarming thou- 
sands from the land shook like a blast the gelid air of the 
Wolfmonth. All space seemed filled and noisy with the 
name of Harold the king. Fast rowed the rowers, on 
shot the boat ; and Hilda’s face, stern and ominous, turned 
tc the still towers of the palace, gleaming wide and 
white in the wintry sun. Suddenly Edith lifted her hand 
from her bosom, and said passionately, — 

“ Oh ! mother of my mother, I cannot live again in the 
house where the very walls speak to me of him ; all things 
chain my soul to the earth ; and my soul should be in 
Heaven, that its prayers may be heard by the heedful 
angels. The day that the holy Lady of England pre- 
dicted hath come to pass, and the silver cord is loosed at 
last. Ah why, why did I not believe her then ? why did 
I then reject the cloister ? Yet no, I will not repent ; at 
least I have been loved ! But now I will go to the nun- 
nery of Waltham, and kneel at the altars he hath hallowed 
to the raone and the monechyn.” 

“Edith,” said the Yala, “ Thou wilt not bury thy life, 
yet young, in the living grave ! And, despite all that 
now severs you — yea, despite Harold’s new and loveless 
ti es — s till clearer than ever it is written in the heavens, 
17 * 


202 


HAROLD. 


that a day shall come, in which you are to be evermore 
united Many of the shapes I have seen, many of the 
sounds I have heard, in the trance and the dream, fade 
in the troubled memory of waking life. But never yet 
hath grown doubtful or dim the prophecy, that the truth 
pledged by the grave shall be fulfilled. ” 

“ Oh, tempt not ! Oh, delude not I” cried Edith, while 
the blood rushed over her brow. “ Thou knowest this 
cannot be. Another’s I he is another’s ! and in the words 
thou hast uttered there is deadly sin.” 

“ There is no sin in the resolves of a fate that rules us 
in spite of ourselves. Tarry only till the year bring round 
the birth-day of Harold ; for my sayings shall be ripe 
with the grape, and when the feet of the vine-herd are 
red in the Month of the Vine,* the Nornas shall knit ye 
together again ! ” 

Edith clasped her hands mutely, and looked hard into 
the face of Hilda, — looked and shuddered, she knew not 
why. 

The boat landed on the eastern shore of the river, be- 
yond the walls of Waltham. The frost was sharp in the 
glitter of the unwarming sun ; upon leafless boughs hung 
the barbed ice-gems ; and the crown was on the brows 
of Harold I And at night, within the walls of the con- 
vent, Edith heard the hymns of the kneeling monks ; and 
the blasts howled, and the storm arose, and the voices of 
destroying hurricanes were blent with the swell of the 
choral hymns. 


* The Wyn- month: October. 


HAROLD. 


203 


CHAPTER I Y 

Tostig sate in the halls of Bruges, and with him sate 
Judith, his haughty wife. The earl and his countess were 
playing at chess (or the game resembling it, which amused 
the idlesse of that age), and the countess had put her 
lord’s game into mortal disorder, when Tostig swept his 
hand over the board, and the pieces rolled on the floor. 

“ That is one way to prevent defeat,” said Judith, with 
a half-smile and half-frown. 

“ It is the way of the bold and the wise, wife mine,” 
answered Tostig, rising ; “ let all be destruction where 
thou thyself canst win not 1 Peace to these trifles ! I 
cannot keep my mind to the mock fight ; it flies to the 
real. Our last news sours the taste of the wine, and 
steals the sleep from my couch. It says that Edward 
cannot live through the winter, and that all men bruit 
abroad, there can be no king save Harold my brother.” 

“And will thy brother as king give to thee again thy 
domain as earl ? ” 

“ He must ! ” answered Tostig, “ and, despite all our 
breaches, with soft message he will For Harold has the 
heart of the Saxon, to which the sons of one father are 
dear; and Githa, my mother, when we first fled, con- 
trolled the voice of my revenge, and bade me wait patient 
and hope ye* ” 


204 


HAROLD. 


Scarce had these words fallen from Tostig’s lips, when 
the chief of his Danish house-carles came in, and an* 
nounced the arrival of a bode from England. 

“His news? his news?” cried the earl; “with his 
own lips let him speak his news.” 

The house-carle withdrew, but to usher in the messen- 
ger, an Anglo-Dane. 

“ The weight on thy brow shows the load on thy 
heart,” cried Tostig. “Speak, and be brief.” 

“Edward is dead.” 

“Ha! and who reigns?” 

“ Thy brother is chosen and crowned.” 

The face of the earl grew red and pale in a breath, 
and successive emotions of envy and old rivalship, hum- 
bled pride and fierce discontent, passed across his turbu- 
lent heart ; but these died away as the predominant 
thought of self-interest, and somewhat of that admira- 
tion for success which often seems like magnanimity in 
grasping minds, and something, too, of haughty exulta- 
tion, that he stood a king’s brother in the halls of his 
exile, came to chase away the more hostile and menacing 
feelings. Then Judith approached, with joy on her brow, 
and said : — 

“ We shall no more eat the bread of dependence even 
at the hand of a father ; and since Harold hath no dame 
to proclaim to the Church, and to place on the dais, thy 
wife, 0 my Tostig, will have state in fair England little 
less than her sister in Rouen.” 

“Methinks so will it be,” said Tostig. “ How now. 


HAROLD. 


205 


nuncius ? why lookest thou so grim, and why shakest 
thou thy head ? ” 

“ Small chance for thy dame to keep state in the halls 
of the king ; small hope for thyself to win back thy 
broad earldom. But a few weeks ere thy brother won 
the crown, he won also a bride in the house of thy spoiler 
and foe Aldyth, the sister of Edwin and Morcar, is 
Lady of England ; and that union shuts thee out from 
Northumbria for ever.” 

At these words, as if stricken by some deadly and in- 
expressible insult, the earl recoiled, and stood a moment 
mute with rage and amaze. His singular beauty became 
distorted into the lineaments of a fiend. He stamped 
with his foot as he thundered a terrible curse. Then 
haughtily waving his hand to the bode, in sign of dis- 
missal, he strode to and fro the room in gloomy pertur- 
bation. 

Judith, like her sister Matilda, a woman fierce and 
vindictive, continued, by that sharp venom that lies in 
the tongue of the sex, to incite still more the intense 
resentment of her lord. Perhaps some female jealousies 
of Aldyth might contribute to increase her own indigna- 
tion. But without such frivolous uddition to anger, there 
was cause eno’ in this marriage thoroughly to complete 
the alienation between the king and his brother. It was 
impossible that one so revengeful as Tostig should not 
ehcrish the deepest animosity, not only against the peo- 
ple that had rejected, but the new earl that had succeeded 
him. In wedding the sister of this fortunate rival and 

II. — 18 


206 


H A R 0 L D . 


despoiler, Harold could not, therefore, but gall him in 
his most sensitive sores of soul. The king, thus, formally 
approved and sanctioned his ejection, solemnly took part 
with his foe, robbed him of all legal chance of recover- 
ing his dominions, and, in the words of the bode, “ shut 
him out from Northumbria for ever.” Nor was this even 
all. Grant his return to England ; grant a reconciliation 
with Harold ; still those abhorred and more fortunate 
enemies, necessarily made now the most intimate part of 
the king’s family, must be most in his confidence, would 
curb and chafe and encounter Tostig in every scheme for 
his personal aggrandizement. His foes, in a word, were 
in the camp of his brother. 

While gnashing his teeth with a wrath the more deadly 
because he saw not yet his way to retribution, — Judith, 
pursuing the separate thread of her own cogitations, said — 

“And if my sister’s lord, the count of the Normans, 
had, as rightly he ought to have, succeeded his cousin 
the Monk-king, then I should have a sister on the throne, 
and thou in her husband a brother more tender than 
Harold. One who supports his barons with sword and 
mail, and gives the villeins rebelling against them but 
the brand and the cord.” 

“ Ho !” cried Tostig, stopping suddenly in his disor 
dered strides, “ Kiss me, wife, for those words ! They 
have helped me to power, and lit me to revenge. If thou 
wouldst send love to thy sister, take graphium and parch- 
ment, and write fast as a scribe. Ere the sun is ar. hour 
older, I am on my road to Count William.” 


HAROLD. 


201 


CHAPTER Y. 

The duke of the Normans was in the forest, or park 
land of Rouvray, and his quens and his knights stood 
around him, expecting some new proof of his strength 
and his skill with the bow ; for the duke was trying some 
arrows, a weapon he was ever employed in seeking to 
improve ; sometimes shortening, sometimes lengthening 
the shaft, and suiting the wing of the feather, and the 
weight of the point, to the nicest refinement in the law 
of mechanics. Gay and debonnair, in the brisk fresh air 
of the frosty winter, the great count jested and laughed 
as the squires fastened a live bird by the string to a stake 
in the distant sward ; and “Pardex,” said Duke William, 
“ Conan of Bretagne, and Philip of France, leave us now 
so unkindly in peace, that I trow we shall never again 
have larger butt for our arrows than the breast of yon 
poor plumed trembler. n 

As the duke spoke and laughed, all the sere boughs 
behind him rattled and cranched, and a horse at full 
speed came rushing over the hard rime of the sward. 
The duke’s smile vanished in the frown of his pride. 
“Bold rider and graceless,” quoth he, “who thus comes 
in the presence of counts and princes ? ” 

Right up to Duke William spurred the rider, and then 
leaped from his steed : vest and mantle, yet more rich 


208 


HAROLD. 


than the duke’s, all tattered and soiled. No knee bent 
the rider, no cap did he doff ; but, seizing the startled 
Norman with the gripe of a hand as strong as his own, 
he led him aside from the courtiers, and said — 

“ Thou knowest me, William ? though not thus alone 
should I come to thy court, if I did not bring thee a 
crown.” 

“ Welcome, brave Tostig ! ” said the duke, marvelling 
“ What meanest thou ? nought but good, by thy words 
and thy smile.” 

“ Edward sleeps with the dead ! — and Harold is king 
of all England I ” 

“ King ! — England ! — King ! ” faltered William, stam- 
mering in his agitation. “ Edward dead ! — Saints rest 
him ! England then is mine ! King ! — / am the king ! 
Harold hath sworn it ; my quens and prelates heard him ; 
the bones of the saints attest the oath ! ” 

“ Somewhat of this have I vaguely learned from our 
beau-pere Count Baldwin ; more will I learn at thy 
leisure ; but take, meanwhile, my word as Miles and 
Saxon, — never, while there is breath on his lips, or one 
beat in his heart, will my brother, Lord Harold, give an 
inch of English land to the Norman.” 

William turned pale and faint with emotion, and leant 
for support against a leafless oak. 

Busy were the rumors, and anxious the watch, of the 
quens and knights, as their prince stood long in the dis- 
tant glade, conferring with the rider, whom one or two 


HAROLD. 


*209 


of them had recognized as Tostig, the spouse of Matilda’s 
sister. 

At length, side by side, still talking earnestly, they re- 
gained the group ; and William, summoning the lord of 
Tancarville, bade him conduct Tostig to Rouen, the 
towers of which rose through the forest trees. “ Rest 
and refresh thee, noble kinsman,” said the duke; “see 
and talk with Matilda. I will join thee anon.” 

The earl remounted his steed, and saluting the company 
with a wild and hasty grace, soon vanished amidst* the 
groves. 

Then William, seating himself on the sward, mechani- 
cally unstrung his bow, sighing oft, and oft frowning; 
and without vouchsafing other words to his lords than 
“No further sport to-day ! ” rose slowly, and went alone 
through the thickest parts of the forest. But his faithful 
Fitzosborne marked his gloom, and fondly followed him. 
The duke arrived at the borders of the Seine, where his 
galley waited him He entered, sat down on the bench, 
and took no notice of Fitzosborne, who quietly stepped 
in after his lord, and placed himself on another bench. 

The little voyage to Rouen was performed in silence ; 
and as soon as he had gained his palace, without seeking 
either Tostig or Matilda, the duke turned into the vast 
hall, in which he was wont to hold council with his 
barons ; and walked to and fro, “ often,” said the chroni- 
cles, “changing posture and attitude, and oft loosening 
and tightening, and drawing into knots, the strings of his 
mantle.” 

18 * 


2n 


210 


HAROLD. 


Fitzosborne, meanwhile, had sought the ex earl, who 
was closeted with Matilda ; and now returning, he went 
boldly up to the duke, whom no one else dared approach, 
and said — 

“Why, my liege, seek to conceal what is already 
known — what ere the eve will be in the mouths of all ? 
You are troubled that Edward is dead, and that Harold, 
violating his oath, has seized the English realm. ” 

“Truly,” said the duke, mildly, and with the tone of a 
meek man much injured ; “ my dear cousins death, and 
the wrongs I have received from Harold touch me 
nearly.” 

Then said Fitzosborne, with that philosophy, half 
grave as became the Scandinavian, half gay as became 
the Frank : “ No man should grieve for what he can help 
— still less for what he cannot help. For Edward’s 
death, I trow, remedy there is none ; but for Harold’s 
treason, yea ! Have you not a noble host of knights and 
warriors ? What want you to destroy the Saxon and 
seize his realm ? What but a bold heart ? A great deed 
once well begun, is half done. Begin, count of the Nor- 
mans, and we will complete the rest.” 

Starting from his sorely tasked dissimulation — for all 
William needed, and all of which he doubted, was the aid 
of his haughty barons, — the duke raised his head, and 
his eyes shone out. “ Ha ! sayest thou so ! then, by th'* 
Splendor of God, we will do this deed. Haste thou-, 
rouse hearts, nerve hands— promise, menace, win ! Broad 


HAROLD. 


211 


are the lands of England, and generous a conqueror’s 
hand. Go and prepare all my faithful lords for a 
council, nobler than ever yet stirred the hearts and strung 
the hands of the sons of Rou. 


CHAPTER YI. 

Brief was the sojourn of Tostig at the court of Rouen ; 
speedily made the contract between the grasping duke 
and the revengeful traitor. All that had been promised 
to Harold, was now pledged to Tostig — if the last would 
assist the Norman to the English throne. 

At heart, however, Tostig was ill satisfied. His chance 
conversations with the principal barons, who seemed to 
look upon the conquest of England as the dream of a 
madman, showed him how doubtful it was that William 
could induce his quens to a service, to which the tenure 
of their fiefs did not appear to compel them ; and at all 
events, Tostig prognosticated delays that little suited his 
fiery impatience. He accepted the offer of some two or 
three ships which William put at his disposal, under pre- 
tence to reconnoitre the Northumbrian coasts, and there 
attempt a rising in his own favor. But his discontent 
was increased by the smallness of the aid afforded him ; 
for William, ever suspicious, distrusted both his faith and 
his power. Tostig, with all his vices, was a poor dis- 


212 


HAROLD. 


simulator, and his sullen spirit betrayed itself when he 
took leave of his host. 

“Chance what may,” said the fierce Saxon, “no 
stranger shall seize the English crown without my aid. 
T offer it first to thee ; but thou must come to take it in 
time, or ” 

“ Or what ? ” asked the duke, gnawing his lip. 

“ Or the Father race of Rou will be before thee ! My 
horse paws without. Farewell to thee, Norman ; sharpen 
thy swords, hew out thy vessels, and goad thy slow 
barons.” 

Scarce had Tostig departed, ere William began to 
repent that he had so let him depart ; but seeking counsel 
of Lanfranc, that wise minister reassured him. * 

“Fear no rival, son and lord,” said he. “The bones 
of the dead are on thy side, and little thou knowest, as 
yet, how mighty their fleshless arms ! All Tostig can do 
is to distract the forces of Harold. Leave him to work 
out his worst ; nor then be in haste. Much hath yet to 
be done — cloud must gather and fire must form, ere the 
bolt can be launched. Send to Harold mildly, and gently 
remind him of oath and of relics — of treaty and pledge. 
Put right on thy' side, and then ” 

“Ah, what then ?” 

“Rome shall curse the forsworn — Rome shall hallow 
thy banner ; this be no strife of force against force, but 
a war oi religion ; and thou shalt have on thy side the 
conscience of man, and the arm of the Church.” 

Meanwhile, Tostig embarked at Harfleur ; but instead 


HAROLD. 


213 


of sailing to the northern coasts of England, he made 
for one of the Flemish ports ; and there, under various 
pretences, new manned the Norman vessels with Flem- 
ings, Fins, and Northmen. His meditations during his 
voyage had decided him not to trust to William ; and 
he now bent his course, with fair wind and favoring 
weather, to the shores of his maternal uncle, King Sweyn 
of Denmark. 

In truth, to all probable calculation, his change of 
purpose was politic. The fleets of England were numer- 
ous, and her seamen renowned. The Normans had 
neither experience nor fame in naval fights ; their navy 
itself was scarcely formed. Thus, even William’s land- 
ing in England was an enterprise arduous and dubious. 
Moreover, even granting the amplest success, would not 
this Norman prince, so profound and ambitious, be a 
more troublesome lord to Earl Tostig than his own uncle 
Sweyn ? 

So, forgetful of the compact at Rouen, no sooner nad 
the Saxon lord come in presence of the king of the 
Danes, than he urged on his kinsman the glory of winning 
again the sceptre of Canute. 

A brave but a cautious and wily veteran, was King 
Sweyn ; and a few days before Tostig arrived, he had 
received letters from his sister Githa, who, true to God- 
win’s command, had held all that Harold did and 
counselled, as between himself and his brother, wise and 
just. 

These letters had placed the Dane on his guard, and 


214 


HAROLD. 


shown him the true state of affairs in England. So king 
Sweyn, smiling, thus answered his nephew Tostig : — 

“A great man was Canute, a small man am I : scarce 
can I keep my Danish dominion from the gripe of the 
Norwegian, while Canute took Norway without slash and 
blow ; * but great as he was, England cost him hard 
lighting to win, and sore peril to keep. Wherefore, best 
for the small man to rule by the light of his own little 
sense, nor venture to count on the luck of great Canute; 
— for luck but goes with the great. ” 

“Thine answer,” said Tostig, with a bitter sneer, “is 
not what I expected from an uncle and warrior. But 
other chiefs may be found less afraid of the luck of high 
deeds.” 

“So,” saith the Norwegian chronicler, “not just the 
best friends, the earl left the king,” and went on in haste 
to Harold Hardrada of Norway. 

True Hero of the North, true Darling of War and of 
Song, was Harold Hardrada ! At the terrible battle of 
Stiklestad, at which his brother, St. Olave, had fallen, 
he was but fifteen years of age, but his body was covered 
with the wounds of a veteran. Escaping from the field, 
he lay concealed in the house of a Bonder peasant, 
remote in deep forests, till his wounds were healed. 
Thence, chaunting by the way (for a poet’s soul burned 
bright in Hardrada), “That a day would come when his 
name would be great in the land he now left,” he went 


* “Snorro Sturleson.” Laiug. 


HAROLD. 


215 


on into Sweden, thence into Russia, and after wild 
adventures in the East, joined with the bold troop he had 
collected around him, that famous body-guard of the 
Greek emperors,* called the Vaeringers, and of these he 
became the chief. Jealousies between himself and the 
Greek general of the Imperial forces (whom the Nor- 
wegian chronicler calls Gyrger), ended in Harold’s re- 
tirement w'ith his Yaeringers into the Saracen land of 
Africa. Eighty castles stormed and taken, vast plunder 
in gold and in jewels, and nobler meed in the song of the 
Scald, and the praise of the brave, attested the prowess 
of the great Scandinavian. New laurels, blood-stained; 
new treasures, sword-won, awaited him in Sicily ; and 
thence, rough foretype of the coming crusader, he passed 
on to Jerusalem. His sword swept before him Moslem 
and robber. He bathed in Jordan, and knelt at the 
Holy Cross. 

Returned to Constantinople, the desire for his northern 
home seized Hardrada. There he heard that his nephew 
Magnus, the illegitimate son of St. Olave, had become 
king of Norway, — and he himself aspired to a throne. 

* The Yaeringers, or Varangi, mostly Northmen ; this redoubtable 
force, the Janissaries of the Byzantine empire, afforded brilliant 
field, both of fortune and war, to the discontented spirits, or out- 
lawed heroes of the north. It was joined afterwards by many of 
the bravest and best-born of the Saxon nobles, refusing to dwell 
under the yoke of the Norman. Scott, in “Count Robert of 
Paris,” which, if not one of his best romances, is yet full of truth 
and beauty, has described this renowned band with much poetical 
vigor and historical fidelity. 


216 


HAROLD. 


So he gave up his command under Zoe the empress ; but, 
if Scald be believed, Zoe the empress loved the bold 
chief, whose heart was set on Maria, her niece. To de- 
tain Hardrada, a charge of mal-appropriation, whether 
of pay or of booty, was brought against him. He was 
cast into prison. But when the brave are in danger, the 
saints send the fair to their help 1 Moved by a holy 
dream, a Greek lady lowered ropes from the roof of the 
tower to the dungeon wherein Hardrada was cast. He 
escaped from the prison, he aroused his Yaeringers, they 
flocked round their chief ; he went to the house of his 
lady Maria, bore her off to the galley, put out into the 
Black Sea, reached Novgorod (at the friendly court of 
whose king he Had safely lodged his vast spoils), sailed 
home to the north ; and, after such feats as became sea- 
king of old, received half of Norway from Magnus ; and, 
on the death of his nephew, the whole of that kingdom 
passed to his sway. A king so wise and so wealthy, so 
bold and so dread, had never yet been known in the 
north. And this was the king to whom came Tostig the 
earl, with the offer of England’s crown. 

It was one of the glorious nights of the north, and 
winter had already begun to melt into early spring, when 
two men sate under a kind of rustic porch of rough pine- 
logs, not very unlike those seen now in Switzerland and 
the Tyrol. This porch was constructed before a private 
door, to the rear of a long, low, irregular building of 
wood, which enclosed two or more court-yards, and cov- 
ering an immense space of ground. This private door 


HAROLD. 


2 n 


seemed placed for the purpose of immediate descent to 
the sea ; for the ledge of the rock over which the log- 
porch spread its rude roof, jutted over the ocean ; and 
from it a rugged stair, cut through the crag, descended 
to the beach. The shore, with bold, strange, grotesque 
slab, and peak, and splinter, curved into a large creek ; 
and close under the cliff were moored seven war-ships, high 
and tall, with prows and sterns all gorgeous with gilding 
in the light of the splendid moon. And that rude timber 
house, which seemed but a chain of barbarian huts linked 
into one, was a land palace of Hardrada of Norway ; but 
the true halls of his royalty, the true seats of his empire, 
were the decks of those lofty war-ships. 

Through the small lattice-work of the windows of the 
log-house, lights blazed ; from the roof-top smoke curled ; 
from the hall on the other side of the dwelling, came the 
din of tumultuous wassail ; but the intense stillness of the 
outer air, hushed in frost, and luminous with stars, con- 
trasted and seemed to rebuke the gross sounds of human 
revel. And that northern night seemed almost as bright 
as (but how much more augustly calm, than) the noon 
of the golden south ! 

On a table, within the ample porch, was an immense 
bowl, of birch-wood mounted in silver, and filled with 
potent drink; and two huge horns, of size suiting the 
mighty wassailers of the age. The two men seemed to 
care nought for the stern air of the cold night — true that 
they were wrapped in furs, reft from the polar bear. But 
II. — 19 


218 


HAROLD. 


each had hot thoughts within, that gave greater warmth 
to the veins than the bowl or the bear-skin. 

They were host and guest ; and, as if with the restless- 
ness of his thoughts, the host rose from his seat, and 
passed through the porch and stood on the bleak rock 
under the light of the moon ; and, so seen, he seemed 
scarcely human, but some war-chief of the farthest time, 
— yea, of a time ere the deluge had shivered those rocks, 
and left beds on the land, for the realm of that icy sea. 
For Harold Hardrada was, in height, above all the chil- 
dren of modern men. Five ells of Norway made the 
height of Harold Hardrada.* Nor was this stature ac- 
companied by any of those imperfections in symmetry, 
nor by that heaviness of aspect, which generally render 
any remarkable excess above human stature and strength, 
rather monstrous than commanding. On the contrary, 
his proportions were just, his appearance noble ; and the 
sole defect that the chronicler remarks in his shape, was 
“ that his hands and feet were large, but these were well 
made.”f 


* Laing’s Snorro Sturleson. — “The old Norwegian ell was less 
than the present ell; and Thorlasius reckons, in a note on this 
chapter, that Harold’s stature would be about four Danish ells; viz. 
about eight feet.” — Laing’s note to the text. Allowing for the ex* 
nggeration of the chronicler, it seems probable, at least, that Har- 
drada exceeded seven feet. Since (as Laing remarks in the same 
note), and as we shall see hereafter, “our English Harold offered 
him, according to both English and Danish authority, seven feet of 
land for a grave, or as much more as his stature exceeding that of 
other men, might require.” 

+ Snorro Sturleson. 


HAROLD. 


219 


His face had all the fair beauty of the Norseman ; his 
hair, parted in locks of gold over a brow that bespoke 
the daring of the warrior and the genius of the bard, fell 
in glittering profusion to his shoulders ; a short beard 
and long moustache of the same color as the hair, care- 
fully trimmed, added to the grand and masculine beauty 
of the countenance, in which the only blemish was the 
peculiarity of one eye-brow being somewhat higher than 
the other,* which gave something more sinister to his 
frown, something more arch to his smile. For, quick of 
impulse, the Poet- Titan smiled and frowned often. 

Harold Hardrada stood in the light of the moon, and 
gazing thoughtfully on the luminous sea. Tostig marked 
him for some moments where he sate in the porch, and 
then rose and joined him. 

“ Why should my words so disturb thee, 0 king of the 
Norseman ? ” 

“ Is glory, then, a drug that soothes to sleep ? ” re- 
turned the Norwegian. 

“ I like thine answer, ” said Tostig, smiling, “ and I like 
still more to watch thine eye gazing on the prows of thy 
war-ships. Strange indeed it were, if thou, who hast 
been fighting fifteen years for the petty kingdom of Den- 
mark, should hesitate now, when all England lies before 
thee to seize.” 

“I hesitate,” replied the king,' ‘‘because he, whom 
fortune has befriended so long, should beware how he 


* Snorro Sturlesor*. 


220 


HAROLD. 


strain her favors too far. Eighteen pitched battles fought 
1 in the Saracen land, and in every one was a victor — 
never, at home or abroad, have I known shame and de- 
feat. Doth the wind always blow from one point? — and 
is fate less unstable than the wind ? ” 

“Now, out on thee, Harold Hardrada,” said Tostig 
the fierce; “the good pilot wins his way through all 
winds, and the brave heart fastens fate to its flag. All 
men allow that the North never had warrior like thee ; 
and now, in the mid-day of manhood, wilt thou consent 
to repose on the mere triumph of youth ? ” 

“Nay,” said the king, who, like all true poets, had 
something of the deep sense of a sage, and was, indeed, 
regarded as the most prudent as well as the most adven- 
turous chief in the North land, — “nay, it is not by such 
words, which my soul seconds too well, that thou canst 
entrap a ruler of men. Thou must show me the chances 
of success, as thou wouldst to a grey-beard. For we 
should be as old men before we engage, and as youths 
when we wish to perform.” 

Then the traitor succinctly detailed all the weak points 
in the rule of his brother. A treasury exhausted by the 
lavish and profitless waste of Edward ; a land without 
castle or bulwark, even at the mouths of the rivers ; a 
people grown inert by long peace, and so accustomed to 
own lord and king in the northern invaders, that a single 
successful battle might induce half the population to in- 
sist on the Saxon coming to terms with the foe ; and, 
yielding, as Ironside did to Canute, one half of the realm. 


HAROLD. 


221 


He enlarged on the terror of the Norsemen that still ex- 
isted throughout England, and the affinity between the 
Northumbrians and East Anglians with the race of Har- 
drada. That affinity would not prevent them from resist- 
ing at the first ; but grant success, and it would reconcile 
them to the after sway. And, finally, he aroused Har- 
drada’s emulation by the spur ef the news, that the count 
of the Normans would seize the prize if he himself de- 
layed to forestall him. 

These various representations, and the remembrance 
of Canute’s victory, decided Hardrada ; and, when Tos- 
tig ceased, he stretched his hand towards his slumbering 
war-ships, and exclaimed : 

“ Eno’ ; you have whetted the beaks of the ravens, and 
harnessed the steeds of the sea ! ” 


CHAPTER VII. 

Meanwhile, King Harold of England had made him 
self dear to his people, and been true to the fame he had 
won as Harold the Earl. From the moment of his acces- 
sion, “he had showed himself pious, humble, and affable,* 
and omitted no occasion to show any token of bounteous 
liberality, gentleness, and courteous behavior. — The 
grievous customs also, and taxes which his predecessors 
had raised, he either abolished or diminished ; the ordi- 


19 * 


* Hoveden. 


222 


HAROLD. 


nary wages of his servants and men-of-war he increased, 
and further showed himself very well bent to all virtue 
and goodness.”* 

Extracting the pith from these eulogies, it is clear that, 
as wise statesman no less than good king, Harold sought 
to strengthen himself in the three great elements of regal 
power; — Conciliation of the Church, which had been 
opposed to his father ; the popular affection, on which 
his sole claim to the crown reposed ; and the military 
force of the land, which had been neglected in the reign 
of his peaceful predecessor. 

To the young Atheling he accorded a respect not be- 
fore paid to him ; and, while investing the descendant of 
the ancient line with princely state, and endowing him 
with large domains, his soul, too great for jealousy, 
sought to give more substantial power to his own most 
legitimate rival, by tender care and noble counsels, — by 
efforts to raise a character feeble by nature, and denation- 
alized by foreign rearing. In the same broad and gene- 
rous policy, Harold encouraged all the merchants from 
other countries who had settled in England, nor were 
even such Normans as had escaped the general sentence 
of banishment on Godwin’s return, disturbed in their 
possessions. “In brief,” saith the Anglo-Norman chron- 
icler,! “no man was more prudent in the land, more val- 
iant in arms, in the law more sagacious, in all probity 

* Holinshed. Nearly all chroniclers (even, with scarce an ex- 
ception, those most favoring the Normans) concur in the abilities 
and merits of Harold as a king. 

f “ Vit. Harold. Chron. Ang. Norm.” ii. 243. 


HAROLD. 


223 


more accomplished:” and “ever active,” says more 
mournfully the Saxon writer, “for the good of his coun 
try, he spared himself no fatigue by land or by sea.” * 

From this time, Harold’s private life ceased. Love 
and its charms were no more. The glow of romance had 
vanished. He was not one man ; he was the state, the 
representative, the incarnation of Saxon England : his 
sway and the Saxon freedom, to live or fall together ! 

The soul really grand is only tested in its errors. As 
we know the true might of the intellect by the rich re- 
sources and patient strength with which it redeems a 
failure, so do we prove the elevation of the soul by its 
courageous return into light, its instinctive rebound into 
higher air, after some error that has darkened its vision 
and soiled its plumes. A spirit less noble and pure than 
Harold’s, once entering on the dismal world of enchanted 
superstition, had habituated itself to that nether atmo- 
sphere ; once misled from hardy truth and healthful rea- 
son, it had plunged deeper and deeper into the maze 
But, unlike his contemporary, Macbeth, the Man escaped 
from the lures of the fiend. Not as Hecate in hell, but 
as Dian in Heaven, did he confront the pale Goddess of 
Night. Before that hour in which he had deserted the 
human judgment for the ghostly delusion ; before that 
day in which the brave heart, in its sudden desertion, 
had humbled his pride — the man, in his nature was more 
strong than the god. Now, purified by the flame that 


* Iloveden. 


224 


HAROLD. 


had scorched, and more nerved from the fall that had 
stunned, — that great soul rose sublime through the wrecks 
of the Past, serene through the clouds of the Future, 
concentering in its solitude the destinies of Mankind, and 
strong with instinctive Eternity amidst all the terrors of 
Time. 

King Harold came from York, whither he had gone 
to cement the new power of Morcar, in Northumbria, 
and personally to confirm the allegiance of the Anglo- 
Danes : — King Harold came from York, and in the halls 
of Westminster he found a monk who awaited him with 
the messages of William the Norman. 

Bare-footed and serge-garbed, the Norman envoy 
strode to the Saxon’s chair of state. His form was worn 
with mortification and fast, and his face was hueless and 
livid, with the perpetual struggle between zeal and the 
flesh. 

“ Thus saith William, Count of the Normans,” began 
Hugues Maigrot, the monk. 

“ With grief and amaze hath he heard that you, O 
Harold, his sworn liege-man, have, contrary to oath and 
to fealty, assumed the crown that belongs to himselv. 
But, confiding in thy conscience, and forgiving a mo- 
mert’s weakness, he summons thee, mildly and brother- 
like, to fulfil thy vow. Send thy sister, that he may give 
her in marriage to one of his quens. Give him up the 
strong-hold of Dover; march to thy coast with thine 
armies to aid him, — thy liege lord, — and secure him the 
heritage of Edward his cousin. And thou shalt reign 


HAROLD. 


225 


at his right-hand, his daughter thy bride, Northumbria 
thy fief, and the saints thy protectors.” 

The king’s lip was firm, though pale, as he answered : — 
“ My youug sister, alas l is no more : seven nights 
after I ascended the throne, she died : her dust in the 
grave is all I could send to the arms of the bridegroom. 
I cannot wed the child of thy count : the wife of Harold 
sits beside him.” And he pointed to the proud beauty 
of Aldyth, enthroned under the drapery of gold. “ For 
the vow that I took, I deny it not. But from a vow of 
compulsion, menaced with unworthy captivity, extorted 
from my lips by the very need of the land whose freedom 
had been bound in my chains — from a vow so compelled, 
Church and conscience absolve me. If the vow of a 
maiden on whom to bestow' but her hand, when unknown 
to her parents, is judged invalid by the Church, how 
much more invalid the oath that would bestow on a 
stranger the fates of a nation,* against its knowledge, 
and unconsulting its laws ! This royalty of England 
hath ever rested on the will of the people, declared 
through its chiefs in their solemn assembly. They alone 
who could bestow it, have bestowed it on me : — I have 
no power to resign it to another — and were I in my 
grave, the trust of the crown would not pass to the Nor- 
man, but return to the Saxon people.” 

“ Is this, then, thy answer, unhappy son ? ” said the 
monk, with a sullen and gloomy aspect. 

“Such is my answer.” 

* Malmesbury. 

19* 2o 


HAROLD. 


“ Then, sorrowing for thee, I utter the words of Wil- 
liam. 1 With sword and with mail will he come to punish 
the perjurer; and by the aid of St. Michael, archangel 
of*war, he will conquer his own.’ Amen ! ” 

“ By sea and by land, with sword and with mail, will 
we meet the invader,” answered the king, with a flashing 
eye. “Thou hast said: — so depart.” 

The monk turned and withdrew. 

“ Let the priest’s insolence chafe thee not, sweet lord,” 
said Aldyth. “ For the vow which thou mightest take 
as subject, what matters it now thou art king?” 

Harold made no answer to Aldyth, but turned to his 
chamberlain, who stood behind his throne-chair. 

“Are my brothers without ? ” 

“ They are : and my lord the king’s chosen council.” 

“Admit them : pardon, Aldyth ; affairs fit only for 
men claim me now.” 

The Lady of England took the hint and rose. 

“But the even-mete will summon thee soon,” said she. 

Harold, who had already descended from his chair of 
state, and was bending over a casket of papers' on the 
table, replied, — 

“ There is food here till the morrow ; wait me not.” 

Aldyth sighed, and withdrew at the one door, while 
the thegns most in Harold’s confidence, entered at the 
other. But, once surrounded by her maidens, Aldyth 
forgot all, save that she was again a queen, — forgot all, 
even to the earlier and less gorgeous diadem which her 


HAROLD. 


227 


lord’s hand had shattered on the brows of the son o e 
Pendragon. 

Leofwine, still gay and blithe-hearted, entered first : 
Gurth followed, then Haco, then some half-score of the 
greater thegns. 

They seated themselves at the table, and Gurth spc ke 
first — 

“ Tostig has been with Count William.” 

“ I know it,” said Harold. 

“ It is rumored that he has passed to our uucle Sweyn.” 

‘‘I foresaw it,” said the king. 

“And that Sweyn will aid him to reconquer England 
for the Dane.” 

“ My bode reached Sweyn, with letters from Githa, 
before Tostig ; my bode has returned this day. Sweyn 
has dismissed Tostig : Sweyn will send fifty ships, armed 
with picked men, to the aid of England.” 

“Brother,” cried Leofwine, admiringly, “thou pro- 
videst against danger ere we but surmise it.” 

“ Tostig,” continued the king, unheeding the compli- 
ment, “ will be the first assailant : him we must meet. 
His fast friend is Malcolm of Scotland : him we must 
secure. Go thou, Leofwine, with these letters to Mal- 
colm.— The next fear is from the Welch. Go thou, Ed- 
win of Mercia, to the princes of Wales. On thy way, 
strengthen the forts and deepen the dykes of the marches. 
These tablets hold thy instructions. The Norman, as 
doubtless ye know, my thegns, hath sent to demand our 
crown, and hath announced the coming of his war. With 


228 


HAROLD. 


the dawn I depart to our port at Sandwich,* to muster 
our fleets. Thou with me, Gurth.” 

“ These preparations need much treasure,” said an old 
thegn, “ and thou hast lessened the taxes at the hour of 
need.” 

“ Not yet is it the hour of need. When it comes, our 
people will the more readily meet it with their gold as 
with their iron. There was great wealth in the house of 
Godwin ; that wealth mans the ships of England. What 
hast thou there, Haco ? ” 

“ Thy new-issued coin : it hath on its reverse the word 
‘ Peace.’ ” f 

Who ever saw one of those coins of the Last Saxon 
King, the bold simple head on the one side, that single 
word “Peace” on the other, and did not feel awed and 
touched ? What pathos in that word compared with the 
fate which it failed to propitiate ! 

“ Peace,” said Harold : “ to all that doth not render 
peace, slavery. Yea, may I live to leave peace to our 
children ! Now, peace only rests on our preparation for 
war. You, Morcar, will return with all speed to York, 
and look well to the mouth of the Humber.” 

Then, turning to each of the thegns successively, he 
gave to each his post and his duty ; and that done, con- 
verse grew more general. The many things needful that 
had been long rotting in neglect under the Monk-king, 
and now sprung up, craving instant reform, occupied 

* Supposed to be our first port for ship-building. — Fosbrooke, 
p. 320. - 

f Pax. 


HAROLD. 


229 


them long and anxiously. But cheered and inspirited by 
the vigor and foresight of Harold, whose earlier slow- 
ness of character seemed winged by the occasion into 
rapid decision (as is not uncommon with the English- 
man), all difficulties seemed light, and hope and courage 
were in every breast. 


CHAPTER Till. 

4 

Back went Hugues Maigrot, the Monk, to William, 
and told the reply of Harold to the duke, in the presence 
of Lanfranc. William himself heard it in gloomy silence, 
for Fitzosborne as yet had been wholly unsuccessful in 
stirring up the Norman barons to an expedition so 
hazardous, in a cause so doubtful ; and though prepared 
for the defiance of Harold, the duke was not prepared 
with the means to enforce his threats and make good his 
claim. 

So great was his abstraction, that he suffered the Lom- 
bard to dismiss the monk without a word spoken by him ; 
and he was. first startled from his reverie by Lanfranc’s 
pale hand on his vast shoulder, and Lanfranc’s low voice 
in his dreamy "ear, — 

“ Up ! hero of Europe ; for thy cause is won ! Up ! 
and write with thy bold characters, bold as if graved with 
the point of the sword, my credentials to Rome. Let me 
depart ere the sun sets : and as I go, look on the sinking 
II.— 20 u 


230 


HAROLD. 


orb, and behold the sun of the Saxon that sets evermore 
on England ! ” 

Then briefly, that ablest statesman of the age, (and 
forgive him, despite our modern lights, we must ; for, 
sincere son of the Church, he regarded the violated oath 
of Harold as entailing the legitimate forfeiture of his 
realm, and, ignorant of true political freedom, looked 
upon Church and Learning as the only civilizers of men,) 
then, briefly, Lanfranc detailed to the listening Norman 
the outline of the arguments by which he intended to 
move the Pontifical court to the NTorman side; and en- 
larged upon the vast accession throughout all Europe 
which the solemn sanction of the Church would bring to 
his strength. William’s re-awaking and ready intellect 
soon seized upon the importance of the object pressed 
upon him. He interrupted the Lombard, drew pen and 
parchment towards him, and wrote rapidly. Horses 
were harnessed, horsemen equipped in haste, and with 
no unfitting retinue Lanfranc departed on the mission, 
the most important in its consequences that ever passed 
from potentate to pontiff.* Rebraced to its purpose by 
Lanfranc’s cheering assurances, the resolute, indomitable 
soul of William now applied itself, night and day, to the 
difficult task of rousing his haughty vavasours. Yet 

* Some of the Norman chroniclers state that Robert, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, who had been expelled from England at Godwin’s 
return, was Lanfranc’s companion in this mission ; but more trust- 
worthy authorities assure us that Robert had been dead some years 
before, not long surviving his return into Normandy, 


HAROLD. 


231 


weeks passed before he could even meet a select council 
composed of his own kinsmen and most trusted lords. 
These, however, privately won over, promised to serve 
him “ with body and goods.” But one and all they told 
him, he must gain the consent of the whole principality 
in a general council. That council was convened : thither 
came not only lords and knights, but merchants and 
traders, — all the rising middle class of a thriving state. 

The duke bared his wrongs, his claims, and his schemes. 
The assembly would not or did not discuss the matter in 
his presence ; they would not be awed by its influence ; 
and William retired from the hall. Yarious were the 
opinions, stormy the debate ; and so great the disorder 
grew, that Fitzosborne, rising in the midst, exclaimed — 
“ Why this dispute ? — why this unduteous discord ? 
Is not William your lord ? Hath he not need of you ? 
Fail him now — and, you know him well — by G — he will 
remember it ! Aid him — and you know him well — large 
are his rewards to service and love ! ” 

Up rose at once baron and merchant ; and when at 
last their spokesman was chosen, that spokesman said, — 
“ William is our lord ; is it not enough to pay to our 
lord his dues? No aid do we owe beyond the seas! 
Sore harassed and taxed are we already by his wars ! 
Let him fail in this strange and unparalleled hazard, and 
our land is undone ! ” 

Loud applause followed this speech ; the majority of 
the council were against the duke. 

“ Then,” said Fitzosborne craftily, “ I, who know the 


232 


HAROLD. 


means of each man present, will, with your leave, repre- 
bent your necessities to your count, and make such mo- 
dest offer of assistance as may please ye, yet not chafe 
your liege.” 

Into the trap of this proposal the opponents fell ; and 
Fitzosborne, at the head of the body, returned to Wil- 
liam. 

The Lord of Breteuil approached the dais, on which 
William sate alone, his great sword in his hand, and 
thus spoke, — 

“ My liege, I may well say that never prince had peo- 
ple more leal than yours, nor that have more proved their 
faith and love by the burdens they have borne and the 
moneys they have granted.” 

An universal murmur of applause followed these words. 
“ Good ! good 1 ” almost shouted the merchants espe- 
cially. William’s brows met, and he looked very terrible. 
The Lord of Breteuil gracefully waved his hand, and 
resumed, — 

“Yea, my liege, much have they borne for your glory 
and need; much more will they bear.” 

The faces of the audience fell. 

“Their service does not compel them to aid you be- 
yond the seas.” 

The faces of the audience brightened. 

“ But now they will aid you, in the land of the Saxon 
as in that of the Frank.” 

“ How ? ” cried a stray voice or two 


HAROLD. 


233 


“ Hush, O gentilz amys. Forward, then, 0 my liege, 
and spare them in nought. He who has hitherto sup- 
plied you with two good mounted soldiers, will now grant 
you four ; and he who ” 

“No, no, no!” roared two-thirds of the assembly; 
“ we charged you with no such answer ; we said not that, 
nor that shall it be ! ” 

Out stepped a baron. 

“ Within this country, to defend it, we will serve our 
count ; but to aid him to conquer another man’s country, 
no ! ” 

Out stepped a knight. 

“ If once we rendered this double service, beyond seas 
as at home, it would be held a right and a custom here- 
after ; and we should be as mercenary soldiers, not free- 
born Normans.” 

Out stepped a merchant. 

“And we and our children would be burdened for 
ever to feed one man’s ambition, whenever he saw a king 
to dethrone, or a realm to seize.” 

And then cried a general chorus, — 

“It shall not be — it shall not!” 

The assembly broke at once into knots of tens, twenties 
thirties, gesticulating and speaking aloud, like freemen 
in anger. And ere William, with all his prompt dis 
simulation, could do more than smother his rage, and sit 
griping his sword-hilt, and setting his teeth, the assembly 
dispersed. 

20 * 


234 


HAROLD 


Such were the free souls of the Normans under the 
greatest of their chiefs ; and had those souls been less 
free, England had not been enslaved in one age, to be- 
come free again, God grant, to the end of time ! 


CHAPTER IX. 

Through the blue skies over England there rushed the 
bright stranger — a meteor, a comet, a fiery star ! “such 
as no man before ever saw ; ” it appeared on the 8th, 
before the kalends of May ; seven nights did it shine,* 
and the faces of sleepless men were pale under the angry 
glare. 

The river of Thames rushed blood-red in the beam, 
the winds at play on the broad waves of the Humber, 
broke the surge of the billows into sparkles of fire. With 
three streamers, sharp and long as the sting of a dragon, 
the foreboder of wrath rushed through the hosts of the 
stars. On every ruinous fort, by sea-coast and march, 
the warder crossed his breast to behold it ; on hill and in 
thoroughfare, crowds nightly assembled to gaze on the 
terrible star. Muttering hymns, monks huddled together 
round the altars, as if to exorcise the land of a demon. 
The grave-stone of the Saxon father-chief was lit up, as 
with the coil of the lightning ; and the Morthwyrtha 


* Saxon Chronicle. 


HAROLD. 


235 


looked from the mound, and saw in her visions of awe 
the Valkyrs in the train of the fiery star. 

On the roof of his palace stood Harold the King, and 
with folded arms he looked on the Rider of Night. And 
up the stairs of the turret came the soft steps of Haco, 
and stealing near to the king, he said, — 

“Arm in haste, for the bodes have come breathless to 
tell thee that Tostig, thy brother, with pirate and war- 
ship, is wasting thy shores and slaughtering thy people !” 


CHAPTER X. 

Tostig, with the ships he had gained both from Nor- 
man and Norwegian, recruited by Flemish adventurers, 
fled fast from the banners of Harold. After plundering 
the Isle of Wight, and the Hampshire coasts, he sailed 
up the Humber, where his vain heart had counted on 
friends yet left him in his ancient earldom ; but Harold’s 
soul of vigor was everywhere. Morcar, prepared by the 
king’s bodes, encountered and chased the traitor, and, 
deserted by most of his ships, with but twelve small craft 
Tostig gained the shores of Scotland. There, again 
forestalled by the Saxon king, he failed in succor from 
Malcolm, and retreating to the Orkneys, waited the 
fleets of Hardrada. 

And now Harold, thus at freedom for defence against 
a foe more formidable and less unnatural, hastened to 


236 


HAROLD. 


make secure both the sea and the coast against William 
the Norman. “So great a ship force, so great aland 
force, no king in the land had before.’’ All the summer, 
his fleets swept the channel ; his forces “lay everywhere 
by the sea.” 

But, alas ! now came the time when the improvident 
waste of Edward began to be felt. Provisions and pay 
for the armaments failed.* On the defective resources 
at Harold’s disposal, no modern historian hath sufficiently 
dwelt. The last Saxon king, the chosen of the people, 
had not these levies, and could impose not those burdens, 
which made his successors mighty in war ; and men began 
now to think that, after all, there was no fear of this 
Norman invasion. The summer was gone ; the autumn 
was come ; was it likely that William would dare to trust 
himself in an enemy’s country as the winter drew near ? 
The Saxons — unlike their fiercer kindred of Scandinavia, 
had no pleasure in war ; — they fought well in front of a 
foe, but they loathed the tedious preparations and costly 
sacrifices which prudence demanded for self-defence. 
They now revolted from a strain upon their energies, of 
the necessity of which they were not convinced ! Joyous 
at the temporary defeat of Tostig, men said, “ Marry, a 
joke indeed, that the Norman will put his shaven head 
into the hornet’s nest ! Let him come, if he dare ! ” 

Still, with desperate effort, and at much risk of popu- 

* Saxon Chronicle. — When it was the nativity of St. Mary, then 
were the men’s provisions gone, and no man could any longer keep 
tnem there.” 


HAROLD. 


231 


larity, Harold held together a force sufficient io repel 
any single invader. From the time of his accession, his 
sleepless vigilance had kept watch on the Norman, and 
his spies brought him news of all that passed. 

And now what had passed in the councils of William? 
The abrupt disappointment which the Grand Assembly 
had occasioned him did not last very long. Made aware 
that he could not trust to the spirit of an assembly, 
William now artfully summoned merchant, and knight, 
and baron, one by one. Submitted to the eloquence, 
the promises, the craft, of that master intellect, and to 
the awe of that imposing presence ; unassisted by the 
courage which inferiors take from numbers, one by one 
yielded to the will of the count, and subscribed his quota 
for moneys, for ships, and for men. And while this went 
on, Lanfranc was at work in the Vatican. At that time 
the Archdeacon of the Roman Church was the famous 
Hildebrand. This extraordinary man, fit fellow-spirit to 
Lanfranc, nursed one darling project, the success of which 
indeed founded the true temporal power of the Roman 
pontiffs. It was no less than that of converting the 
mere religious ascendency of the Holy See into the 
actual sovereignty over the states of Christendom. The 
most immediate agents of this gigantic scheme were the 
Normans, who had conquered Naples by the arm of the 
adventurer Robert Guiscard, and under the gonfanon of 
St. Peter. Most of the new Norman countships and 
dukedoms thus created in Italy had declared themselves 
fiefs of the Church ; and the successor of the apostle 


238 


HAROLD. 


might well hope, by aid of the Norman priest-knights, 
to extend his sovereignty over Italy, and thence dictate 
to the kings beyond the Alps. 

The aid of Hildebrand in behalf of William’s claims 
was obtained at once by Lanfranc. The profound Arch- 
deacon of Rome saw at a glance the immense power that 
would accrue to the Church by the mere act of arrogating 
to itself the disposition of crowns, subjecting rival princes 
to abide by its decision, and fixing the men of its choice 
on the thrones of the North. Despite all its slavish 
superstition, the Saxon Church was obnoxious to Rome. 
Even the pious Edward had offended, by withholding 
the old levy of Peter Pence ; and simony, a crime 
peculiarly reprobated by the pontiff, was notorious in 
England. Therefore there was much to aid Hildebrand 
in the Assembly of the Cardinals, when he brought be- 
fore them the oath of Harold, the violation of the sacred 
relics, and demanded that the pious Normans, true friends 
to the Roman Church, should be permitted to Chris- 
tianize the barbarous Saxons,* and William be nominated 
as heir to a throne promised to him by Edward, and for- 


* It is curious to notice how England was represented as a coun- 
try almost heathen ; its conquest was regarded quite as a pious, 
benevolent act of charity — a sort of mission for converting the 
savages. And all this while England was under the most slavish 
ecclesiastical domination, and the priesthood possessed a third of 
its land ! But the heart of England never forgave that league of 
the Pope with the Conqueror ; and the seeds of the Reformed Re- 
ligion were trampled deep into the Saxon soil by the feet of the in- 
trading Norman. 


HAROLD. 


239 


feited by the perjury of Harold. Nevertheless, to the 
honor of that assembly, and of man, there was a holy 
opposition to this wholesale barter of human rights, — 
this sanction of an armed onslaught on a Christian 
people. “ It is infamous,” said the good, “to authorize 
homicide.” But Hildebrand was all-powerful, and pre- 
vailed. 

William was at high-feast with his barons when Lan- 
franc dismounted at his gates and entered his hall. 

“ Hail to thee, King of England ! ” he said. “ I bring 
the bull that excommunicates Harold and his adherents ; 
I bring to thee the gift of the Roman Church, the land 
and royalty of England. I bring to thee the gonfanon 
hallowed by the heir of the apostle, and the very ring 
that contains the precious relic of the apostle himself! 
Now who will shrink from thy side ? Publish thy ban, 
not in Normandy alone, but in every region and realm 
where the Church is honored. This is the first war of 
the Cross ! v 

Then indeed was it seen — that might of the Church ! 
Soon as were made known the sanction and gifts of the 
Pope, all the continent stirred, as to the blast of the 
trump in the Crusade, of which that war was the herald. 
From Maine and from Anjou, from Poitou and Bretagne, 
from France and from Flanders, from Aquitaine and 
Burgundy, flashed the spear, galloped the steed. The 
robber-chiefs from the castles now grey on the Rhine ; 
the hunters and bandits from the roots of the Alps; 
baron and knight, varlet and vagrant, — all came to tin 


240 


HAROLD. 


flag of the Church, — to the pillage of England. For 
side bv side with the Pope’s holy bull was the martial 
ban: — “ Good pay and broad lands to every one who 
will serve Count William with spear, and with sword, 
and with cross-bow.” And the duke said to Fitzosborne, 
as he parcelled out the fair fields of England into Nor- 
man fiefs, — 

“ Harold hath not the strength of mind to promise the 
least of those things that belong to me. But I have the 
right to promise that which is mine, and also that which 
belongs to him. He must be the victor who can give 
away both his own and what belongs to his foe.”* 

All on the continent of Europe regarded England’s 
king as accursed — William’s enterprise as holy; and 
mothers who had turned pale when their sons went forth 
to the boar-chase, sent their darlings to enter their names, 
for the weal of their souls, in the swollen muster-roll of 
William the Norman. Every port now in Neustria was 
busy with terrible life ; in every wood was heard the axe 
felling logs for the ships ; from every anvil flew the sparks 
from the hammer, as iron took shape into helmet and 
sword. All things seemed to favor the Church’s chosen 
one. Conan, Count of Bretagne, sent to claim the duchy 
of Normandy as legitimate heir. A few days afterwards, 
Conan died, poisoned (as had died his father before him), 
by the mouth of his horn and the web of his gloves. And 

* William of Poitiers. — The naive sagacity of this bandit argu- 
ment, and the Norman’s contempt for Harold’s deficiency ip 
“strength of mind,” are exquisite illustrations of character. 


HAROLD. 


24) 


the new Count of Bretagne sent his sons to take part 
against Harold. 

All the armament mustered at the roadstead of St. 
Valery, at the mouth of the Somme. But the winds 
were long hostile, and the rains fell in torrents. 


CHAPTER XI. 

And now, while war thus hungered for England at the 
mouth of the Somme, the last and most renowned of the 
sea-kings, Harold Hardrada, entered his galley, the tall- 
est and strongest of a fleet of three hundred sail, that 
peopled the seas round Solundir. And a man named 
Gyrdir, on board the king’s ship, dreamed a dream.* 
He saw a great witch-wife standing on an isle of the Su- 
len, with a fork in one hand, and a trough in the other, f 
He saw her pass over the whole fleet ; — by each of the 
three hundred ships he saw her ; and a fowl sat on the 
stern of each ship, and that fowl was a raven ; and he 
heard the witch- wife sing this song: — 

“ From the East I allure him, 

At the West I secure him; 

In the feast I foresee 
Rare the relics for me ; 

Red the drink, white the bones. 


* Snorro Sturleson. 

| Does any Scandinavian scholar know why the trough was so 
associated with the images of Scandinavian witchcraft? A witch 

II. —21 2p 


242 


HAROLD. 


“ The ravens sit greeding, 

And watching, and heeding. 

Thoro’ wind, over water, 

Comes scent of the slaughter. 

And ravsns sit greeding 
Their share of the bones. 

“Thoro’ wind, thoro’ weather, 

We’re sailing together; 

I sail with the ravens; 

I watch with the ravens; 

I snatch from the ravens 
My share of the bones.” 

There was also a man called Thord,* * in a ship that 
lay near the king’s ; and he too dreamed a dream. He 
saw the fleet nearing land, and that land was England. 
And on the land was a battle array two-fold, and many 
banners were flapping on both sides. And before the 
army of the land-folk, was riding a huge witch-wife upon 
a wolf; the wolf had a man’s carcase in his mouth, and 
the blood was dripping and dropping from his jaws ; and 
when the wolf had eaten up that carcase, the witch-wife 
threw another into his jaws ; and so, one after another; 
and the wolf cranched and swallowed them all. And the 
witch-wife sang this song : — 

“ The green waving fields 
Are hidden behind 
The flash of the shields, 

And the rush of the banners 
That toss in the wind. 


was known, when seen behind, by a kind of trough-like shape ; 
there must be some symbol, of very ancient mythology, in this su- 
perstition ! 

* Snorro Sturleson. 


HAROLD. 


24S 


e * But Skade’s eagle eyes 

Pierce the wall of the steel, 

And behold from the skies 
What the earth would conceal ; 

O’er the rush of the banners 
She poises her wing, 

And marks with a shadow 
The brow of the king. 

“And, in bode of his doom, 

Jaw of Wolf, be the tomb 
Of the bones and the flesh, 

Gore-bedabbled and fresh, 

That cranch and that drip 
Under fang and from lip, 

As I ride in the van 
Of the feasters on man, 

With the king. 

“Grim wolf, sate thy maw, 

Full enow shalt there be, 

Hairy jaw, hungry maw, 

Both for ye and for me! 

“ Meaner food be the feast 
Of the fowl and the beast; 

But the witch, for her share, 

Takes the best of the fare: 

And the witch shall be fed 
With the king of the dead, 

When she rides in the van, 

Of the slayers of man, 

With the king.” 

And King Harold dreamed a dream. And he saw bt> 
fore him his brother St. Olave. And the dead, to the 
Bcald-King, sang this song : — 


HAROLD 


444 

“Bold as thou in the fight, 

Blithe as thou in the hall. 

Shone the noon of my might, 

Ere the night of my fall ! 

“ How humble is death, 

And how haughty is life, 

And how fleeting the breath 
Between slumber and strife ! 

“All the earth is too narrow, 

0 life, for thy tread! 

Two strides o’er the barrow 
Can measure the dead. 

“Yet mighty that space is 
Which seemeth so small; 

The realm of all races, 

With room for them all ! ” 

But Harold Hardrada scorned witch-wife and dream ; 
and his fleets sailed on. Tostig joined him off the Ork- 
ney Isles, and this great armament soon came in sight 
of the shores of England. They landed at Cleveland,* 
and at the dread of the terrible Norsemen, the coasters 
fled or submitted. With booty and plunder they sailed 
on to Scarborough, but there the townsfolk were brave, 
and the walls were strong. The Norsemen ascended a 
hill above the town, lit a huge pile of wood, and tossed 
the burning piles down on the roofs. House after house 
caught the flame, and through the glare and the Jrash 
rushed the men of Hardrada. Great was the slaughter, 
and ample the plunder ; and the town, awed and depeo- 
p l «d, submitted to flame and to sword. 


*Snorro Sturleson. 


HAROLD. 


245 


Then the fleet sailed up the Humber and Ouse, and 
landed at Richall, not far from York; but Morcar, the 
earl of Northumbria, came out with all his forces, — all 
the stout men and tall of the great race of the Anglo- 
Dane. 

Then Hardrada advanced his flag, called Land-Eyda, 
the “ Ravager of the World,”* and, chaunting a war- 
stave, — led his men to the onslaught. 

The battle was fierce, but short. The English troops 
were defeated ^ they fled into York; and the Ravager 
of the World was borne in triumph to the gates of the 
town. An exiled chief, however tyrannous and hateful, 
hath ever some friends among the desperate and lawless ; 
and success ever finds allies among the weak and the 
craven, — so many Northumbrians now came to the side 
of Tostig. Dissension and mutiny broke out amidst the 
garrison within ; Morcar, unable to control the towns- 
folk, was driven forth with those still true to their country 
and king, and York agreed to open its gates to the con- 
quering invader. 

At the news of this foe on the north side of the land, 
King Harold was compelled to withdraw all the forces 
at watch in the south against the tardy invasion of Wil- 
liam. It was the middle of September; eight months 
had elapsed since the Norman had launched forth his 

* So Thierry translates the word: others, the Land-ravager. In 
Danish, the word is Land-ode ; in Icelandic, Land-eydo.— Note to 
Thierry’s “Hist, of the Conq. of England,” book iii. vol. vi. p. 160 
(of Hazlitt’s translation). 

21 * 


246 


HAROLD. 


vaunting threat. Would he now dare to come ? — Come 
or not, that foe was afar, and this was in the heart of the 
country ! 

Now, York having thus capitulated, all the land round 
was humbled and awed ; and Hardrada and Tostig were 
blithe and gay ; and many days, thought they, must pass 
ere Harold the king can come from the south to the 
north. 

The camp of the Norsemen was at Stanford Bridge, 
and that day it was settled that they should formally 
enter York. Their ships lay in the river beyond ; a large 
portion of the armament was with the ships. The day 
was warm, and the men with Hardrada had laid aside 
their heavy mail and were “ making merry,” talking of 
the plunder of York, jeering at Saxon valor, and gloat- 
ing over thoughts of the Saxon maids, whom Saxon men 
had failed to protect, — when suddenly between them and 
the town rose and rolled a great cloud of dust. High it 
rose, and fast it rolled, and from the heart of the cloud 
shone the spear and the shield. 

“ What army comes yonder ? ” said Harold Hardrada. 

“ Surely,” answered Tostig, “ it comes from the town 
that we are to enter as conquerors, and can be but the 
friendly Northumbrians who have deserted Morcar for 
me.” 

Nearer and nearer came the force, and the shine of 
the arms was like the glancing of ice. 

“Advance the World-Ravager !” cried Harold Hard 
radaj “draw up, and to arms!” 


HAROLD. 


247 


Then, picking out three of his briskest'youths, he 
despatched them to the force on the river with orders to 
come up quick to the aid. For already, through the 
cloud and amidst the spears, was seen the flag of the 
English king. On the previous night King Harold had 
entered York, unknown to the invaders — appeased the 
mutiny — cheered the townsfolks ; and now came like the 
thunderbolt borne by the winds, to clear the air of Eng- 
land from the clouds of the North. 

Both armaments drew up in haste, and Hardrada 
formed his array in the form of a circle, — the line long 
but not deep, the wings curving round till they met,* 
shield to shield. Those who stood in the first rauk set 
their spear-shafts on the ground, the points level with 
the breast of a horseman ; those in the second, with 
spears yet lower, level with the breast of a horse ; thus 
forming a double palisade against the charge of cavalry. 
In the centre of this circle was placed the Ravager of 
the World, and round it a rampart of shields. Behind 
that rampart was the accustomed post at the onset of 
battle for the king and his body-guard. But Tostig was 
in front, with his own Northumbrian Lion banner and 
his chosen men. 

While this army was thus being formed, the English 
king was marshalling his force in the far more formidable 
tactics, which his military science had perfected from the 
warfare of the Danes. That form of battalion, invincible 
hitherto under his leadership, was in the manner of a 


* Snorro Sturleson. 


248 


HAROLD. 


wedge or firiangle, thus a. So that, in attack, the men 
marched on the foe presenting the smallest possible sur- 
face to the missives, and, in defence, all three lines faced 
the assailauts. King Harold cast his eye over the closing 
lines, and then, turning to Gurth, who rode by his side, 
said, — 

“ Take one man from yon hostile army, and with what 
joy should we charge on the Northmen 1 ” 

“I conceive thee,” answered Gurth mournfully, “and 
the same thought of that one man makes my arm feel 
palsied.” 

The king mused and drew down the nasal bar of his 
helmet. 

“ Thegns,” said he suddenly, to the score of riders who 
grouped round him, “follow.” And shaking the rein of 
his horse, King Harold rode straight to that part of the 
hostile front from which rose, above the spears, the 
Northumbrian banner of Tostig. Wondering, but mute, 
the twenty thegns followed him. Before the grim array, 
and hard by Tostig’s banner, the king checked his steed 
and cried, — 

“ Is Tostig, the son of Godwin and Githa, by the flag 
of the Northumbrian earldom?” 

With his helmet raised, and his Norwegian mantle 
flowing over his mail, Earl Tostig rode forth at that 
voice, and came up to the speaker.* 

* See Snorro Sturleson for this parley between Harold in person 
and Tostig. The account differs from the Saxon chroniclers, but 
In this particular instance is likely to be as accurate. 


HAROLD. 


249 


“ What wouldst thou with me, daring foe ? ” 

The Saxon horseman paused, and his deep voice trem- 
bled tenderly, as he answered slowly, — 

“ Thy brother, King Harold, sends to salute thee. 
Let not the sons from the same womb wage unnatural 
war in the soil of their fathers. ” 

“ What will Harold the king give to his brother ? ” 
answered Tostig. “Northumbria already he hath be- 
stowed on the son of his house’s foe.” 

The Saxon hesitated, and a rhjer by his side took up 
the word. 

“If the Northumbrians will receive thee again, North- 
umbria shalt thou have, and the king will bestow* his late 
earldom of Wessex on Morcar ; if the Northumbrians 
reject thee, thou shalt have all the lordships which King 
Harold hath promised to Gurth.” 

“ This is well,” answered Tostig ; and he seemed to 
pause as in doubt ; — when, made aware of this parley, 
King Harold Hardrada, on his coal-black steed, with his 
helm all shining with gold, rode from the lines, and came 
into hearing. 

“ Ha ! ” said Tostig, then, turning round, as the giant 
form of the Norse king threw its vast shadow over the 
ground. 

“And if I take the offer, what will Harold son of God- 
win give to my friend and ally Hardrada of Norway ?” 

The Saxon rider raised his head at these words, and 
gazed on the large front of Hardrada, as he answered 
loud and distinct. — 


21* 


250 


HAROLD. 


“ Seven feet of land for a grave, or, seeing that he is 
taller than other men, as much more as his corse may 
demand ! ” 

“ Then go back, and tell Harold my brother to get 
ready for battle ; for never shall the Scalds and the war- 
riors of Norway say that Tostig lured their king in his 
cause, to betray him to his foe. Here did he come, and 
here came I, to win as the brave win, or die as the brave 
die!” 

A rider of younger and slighter form than the rest 
here whispered the Saxon king, — 

“ Delay no more, or thy men’s hearts will fear treason.” 

“The tie is rent from my heart, 0 Haco,” answered 
the king, “and the heart flies back to our England.” 

He waved his hand, turned his steed, and rode off. 
The eye of Hardrada followed the horsemen. 

“And who,” he asked calmly, “ is that man who spoke 
so well ? ” * 

“ King Harold ! ” answered Tostig, briefly. 

“ How ! ” cried the Norseman reddening, “ how was 
not that made known to me before ? Never should he 
have gone back, — never told hereafter the doom of this 
day ! ” 

With all his ferocity, his envy, his grudge to Harold, 
and his treason to England, some rude notions of honor 
still lay confused in the breast of the Saxon ; and he 
answered stoutly, — 

“Imprudent was Harold’s coming, and great his 


*Snorro Sturleson. 


HAROLD. 


251 


danger : but he came to offer me peace and dominion 
Had I betrayed him, I had not been his foe, but his 
murderer ! ” 

The Norse King smiled approvingly, and turning to 
his chiefs, said dryly, — 

“ That man was shorter than some of us, but he rode 
firm in his stirrups.’’ 

And then this extraordinary person, who united in 
himself all the types of an age that vanished for ever in 
his grave, and who is the more interesting, as in him we 
see the race from which the Norman sprang, began, in 
the rich full voice that pealed deep as an organ, to chaunt 
his impromptu war-song. He halted in the midst, and 
with great composure said, — 

“ That verse is but ill-tuued : I must try a better.” * 

He passed his hand over his brow, mused an instant, 
and then, with his fair face all illumined, he burst forth 
as inspired. 

This time, air, rhythm, words, all so chimed in with 
his own enthusiasm and that of his men, that the effect 
was inexpressible. It was, indeed, like the charm of 
those runes which are said to have maddened the Ber- 
serker with the frenzy of war. 

Meanwhile the Saxon phalanx came on, slow and firm, 
and in a few minutes the battle began. It commenced 
first with the charge of the English cavalry (never numer- 
ous), led by Leofwine and Haco, but the double palisade 
of the Norsemen spears formed an impassable barrier ; and 


* Snorro Sturleson. 


252 


HAROLD 


the horseman recoiling from the frieze, rode round the 
iron circle without other damage than the spear and jave- 
lin could effect. Meanwhile, King Harold, who had dis- 
mounted, marched, as was his wont, with the body of 
footmen. He kept his post in the hollow of the triangular 
wedge ; whence he could best issue his orders. Avoid- 
ing the side over which Tostig presided, he halted his 
array in full centre of the enemy where the Ravager of 
the World, streaming high above the inner rampart of 
shields, showed the presence of the giant Hardrada. 

The air was now literally darkened with the flights of 
arrows and spears ; and in a war of missives, the Saxons 
were less skilled than the Norsemen. Still King Harold 
restrained the ardor of his men, who, sore harassed by 
the darts, yearned to close on the foe. He himself, stand- 
ing on a little eminence, more exposed than his meanest 
soldier, deliberately eyed the sallies of the horse, and 
watched the moment he foresaw, when, encouraged by 
his own suspense, and the feeble attacks of the cavalry, 
the Norsemen would lift their spears from the ground, 
and advance themselves to the assault. That moment 
came ; unable to withhold their own fiery zeal, stimulated 
by the tromp and the clash, and the war-hymns of their 
king, and his choral Scalds, the Norsemen broke ground 
and came on. 

“ To your axes, and charge ! ” cried Harold ; and 
passing at once from the centre to the front, he led on 
the array. 

The impetus of that artful phalanx was tremendous ; 


HAROLD. 


253 


it pierced through the ring of the Norwegians ; it clove 
into the rampart of shields ; and King Harold’s battle- 
axe was the first that shivered that wall of steel ; his step 
the first that strode into the innermost circle that guarded 
the Ravager of the World. 

Then forth, from under the shade of that great flag, 
came, himself also on foot, Harold Hardrada : shouting 
and chaunting, he leapt w ? ith long strides into the thick 
of the onslaught. He had flung away his shield, and 
swaying with both hands his enormous sword, he hewed 
down man after man, till space grew clear before him ; 
and the English, recoiling in awe before an image of 
height and strength that seemed superhuman, left but 
one form standing firm, and in front, to oppose his way. 

At that moment the whole strife seemed not to belong 
to an age comparatively modern : it took a character of 
remotest eld ; and Thor and Odin seemed to have re- 
turned to the earth. Behind this towering and Titan 
warrior, their wild hair streaming long under their helms, 
came his Scalds, all singing their hymns, drunk with the 
madness of battle. And the Ravager of the World tossed 
and flapped as it followed, so that the vast raven depict- 
ed on its folds seemed horrid with life. And calm and 
alone, his eye watchful, his axe lifted, his foot ready for 
rusl or for spring — but firm as an oak against fight — 
stood the last of the Saxon kings. 

Down bounded Hardrada, and down shore his swwd ; 
King Harold’s shield was cloven in two, and the force of 
Mie blow brought himself to his kne^ But, as swift as 

II. — 22 


254 


HAROLD. 


the flash of that sword, he sprang to his feet ; and while 
Hardrada still bowed his head, not recovered from the 
force of his blow, the axe of the Saxon came so full on 
his helmet, that the giant reeled, dropped his sword, and 
staggered back ; his Scalds and his chiefs rushed around 
him. That gallant stand of King Harold saved his Eng- 
lish from flight ; and now, as they saw him almost lost in 
the throng, yet still cleaving his way — on, on — to the 
raven standard, they rallied with one heart, and shouting 
forth, “ Out, out ! Holy Crosse ! 11 forced their way to his 
side, and the fight now waged hot and equal, hand to 
hand. Meanwhile, Hardrada, borne a little apart, and 
relieved from his dinted helmet, recovered the shock of 
the weightiest blow that had ever dimmed his eye and 
numbed his hand. Tossing the helmet on the ground, 
his bright looks glittering like sunbeams, he rushed back 
to the melee. Again, helm and mail went down before 
him ; again, through the crowd he saw the arm that had 
smitten him ; again, he sprang forwards to finish the war 
with a blow, — when a shaft from some distant bow pierced 
the throat which the casque now left bare ; a sound like 
the wail of a death-song murmured brokenly from his lips, 
which then gushed out with blood, and tossing up his 
arms wildly, he fell to the ground, a corpse. At that 
sight a yell of such terror and woe and wrath, all com- 
mingled, broke from the Norsemen, that it hushed the 
very war for the moment ! 

“ On !” cried the Saxon king, “let our earth take its 
spoiler ! On to the standard, and the day is our own I 1 * 


HAROLD. 255 

“ On to the standard ! ” cried Haco, who, his horse slain 
under him, all bloody witn wounds not his own, now came 
to the king’s side. Grim and tall rose the standard, and 
the streamer shrieked and flapped in the wind as if the 
raven had voice, when right before Harold, right between 
him and the banner, stood Tostig his brother, known by 
the splendor of his mail, the gold work on his mantle — 
known by the fierce laugh, and defying voice. 

“What matters!” cried Haco; “strike, 0 king, for 
thy crown ! ” 

Harold’s hand griped Haco’s arm convulsively ; he 
lowered his axe, and passed shudderingly away. 

Both armies now paused from the attack; for both 
were thrown into great disorder, and each gladly gave 
respite to the other, to re-form its own shattered array. 

The Norsemen were not the soldiers to yield because 
their leader was slain — rather the more resolute to fight, 
since revenge was now added to valor; yet, but for the 
daring and promptness with which Tostig had cut his 
way to the standard, the day had been already decided. 

During the pause, Harold, summoning Gurth, said to 
him in great emotion : “ For the sake of Nature, for the 
love of God, go, 0 Gurth, — go to Tostig ; urge him, 
now Hardrada is dead, urge him to peace. All that we 
can proffer with honor, proffer — quarter and free retreat 
to every Norseman.* Oh, save me, save us from a bro- 
ther’s blood ! ” 


* Sharon Turner’s Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. p 396. Snorro Sturleson. 


256 


HAROLt. 


Gurth lifted his helmet, and kissed the mailed hand that 
grasped his own. 

“ I go,” said he. And so, bare-headed, and with a sin- 
gle trumpeter, he went to the hostile lines. 

Harold awaited him in great agitation ; nor could any 
man have guessed what bitter and awful thoughts lay in 
that heart, from which, in the way to power, tie after tie 
had been wrenched away. He did not wait long ; and 
even before Gurth rejoined him, he knew, by an unani- 
mous shout of fury, to which the clash of countless shields 
chimed in, that the mission had been in vain. 

Tostig had refused to hear Gurth, save in presence of 
the Norwegian chiefs ; and when the message had been 
delivered, they all cried, “We would rather fall one across 
the corpse of the other,* than leave a field in which our 
king was slain.” 

“Ye hear them,” said Tostig ; “as they speak, speak 
I.” 

“Not mine this guilt, too , 0 God!” said Harold, sol- 
emnly lifting his hand on high. “Now, then, to duty.” 

By this time the Norwegian reinforcements had arrived 
from the ships, and this for a short time rendered the 
conflict, that immediately ensued, uncertain and critical. 
But Harold’s generalship was now as consummate as his 
valor had been daring. He kept his men true to their 
irrefragable line. Even if fragments splintered oif, each 
fragment threw itself into the form of a resistless wedge. 
One Norwegian, standing on the bridge of Stanford, long 


* Snorro Sturleson. 


HAROLD. 


257 


guarded that pass ; and no less than forty Saxons are 
said to have perished by his arm. To him the English 
king sent a generous pledge, not only of safety for the 
life, but honor for the valor. The viking refused to sur- 
render, and fell at last by a javelin from the hand of 
Haco. As if in him had been embodied the unyielding 
war-god of the Norsemen, in that death died the last hope 
of the vikings. They fell literally where they stood ; many, 
from sheer exhaustion and the weight of their mail, died 
without a blow.* And in the shades of nightfall, Harold 
stood amidst the shattered rampart of shields, his foot 
on the corpse of the standard-bearer, his hand on the 
Ravager of the World. 

“ Thy brother’s corpse is borne yonder,” said Haco, in 
the ear of the king, as, wiping the blood from his sword, 
he plunged it back into the sheath. 


CHAPTER XII. 

Young Olave, the son of Hardrada, had happily 
escaped the slaughter. A strong detachment of the Nor- 
wegians had still remained with the vessels ; and amongst 
them some prudent old chiefs, who, foreseeing the proba- 
ble results of the day, and knowing that Hardrada would 

* The quick succession of events allowed the Saxon army no time 
to bury the slain ; and the bones of the invaders whitened the field 
of battle for many years afterwards. 

22 * 2q 


258 


HAROLD. 


never quit, save as a conqueror or a corpse, the field on 
which he had planted the Ravager of the World, had 
detained the prince almost by force from sharing the fate 
of his father. But ere those vessels could put out to sea, 
the vigorous measures of the Saxon king had already 
intercepted the retreat of the vessels. And then, ranging 
their shields as a wall round their masts, the bold vikings 
at least determined to die as men. But with the morning 
came King Harold himself to the banks of the river, and 
behind him, with trailed lances, a solemn procession that 
bore the body of the Scald King. They halted on the 
margin, and a boat was launched towards the Norwegian 
fleet, bearing a monk who demanded the chiefs to send a 
deputation, headed by the young prince himself, to re- 
ceive the corpse of their king, and hear the proposals 
of the Saxon. 

The vikings, who had anticipated no preliminaries to 
the massacre they awaited, did not hesitate to accept 
these overtures. Twelve of the most famous chiefs still 
surviving, and Olave himself, entered the boat; and, 
standing between his brothers Leofwine and Gurth, Ha- 
rold thus accosted them : — 

“Your king invaded a people that hrad given him no 
offence : he has paid the forfeit — we war not with the 
dead ! Give to his remains the honors due to the brave. 
Without ransom or condition, we yield to you what can 
no longer harm us. And for thee, young prince/’ con- 
tinued the king, with a tone of pity in his voice, as he 
contemplated the stately boyhood and proud but deep 


HAROLD. 


259 


grief in the face of Olave, “for thee, wilt thou not live 
to learn that the wars of Odin are treason to the Faith 
of the Cross ? We have conquered — we dare not butcher. 
Take such ships as ye need for those that survive. Three- 
and-twenty I offer for your transport. Return to your 
native shores, and guard them as we have guarded ours. 
Are ye contented ? ” 

Amongst those chiefs was a stern priest — the Bishop 
of the Orcades — he advanced, and bent his knee to the 
king. 

“ 0 Lord of England,” said he, “ yesterday thou didst 
conquer the form — to-day, the soul. And never more 
may generous Norsemen invade the coast of him who 
honors the dead and spares the living.” 

“Amen 1 ” cried the chiefs, and they all knelt to Ha- 
rold. The young prince stood a moment irresolute, for 
his dead father was on the bier before him, and revenge 
was yet a virtue in the heart of a sea-king. But lifting 
his eyes to Harold’s, the mild and gentle majesty of the 
Saxon’s brow was irresistible in its benign command ; 
and stretching his right hand to the king, he raised on 
high the other, and said aloud, “ Faith and friendship 
with thee and England evermore.” 

Then all the chiefs rising, they gathered round the 
bier, but no hand, in the sight of the conquering foe, 
lifted the cloth of gold that covered the corpse of the 
famous king. The bearers of the bier moved on slowly 
towards tne boat ; the Norwegians followed with mea- 
sured funereal steps. And not till the bier was placed 


f 


260 


HAROLD. 


on board the royal galley was there heard the wail of 
woe ; but then it came loud, and deep, and dismal, and 
was followed by a burst of wild song from a surviving 
Scald. 

The Norwegian preparations for departure were soon 
made, and the ships vouchsafed to their convoy raised 
anchor, and sailed down the stream. Harold’s eye watched 
the ships from the river banks. 

“And there,” said he, at last, ‘'there glide the last sails 
that shall ever bear the devastating raven to the shores 
of England.” 

Truly, in that field had been the most signal defeat 
those warriors, hitherto almost invincible, had known. 
On that bier lay the last son of Berserker and sea-king ; 
and be it, 0 Harold, remembered in thine honor, that 
not by the Norman, but by thee, true-hearted Saxon, 
was trampled on the English soil the Ravager of the 
World!”* 

“ So be it,” said Haco, “ and so, methinks, will it be. 
But forget not the descendant of the Norsemen, the 
count of Rouen ! ” 

Harold started, and turned to his chiefs. “ Sound 
trumpet, and fall in. To York we march. There, re- 
settle the earldom, collect the spoil, and then back, my 
men, to the southern shores. Yet first kneel thou, Haco, 

* It may be said indeed, that, in the following reign, the Danes 
under Osbiorn (brother of King Sweyn), sailed up the Humber: 
but it was to assist the English, not to invade them. They were 
bought off by the Norman, — not conquered. 


HAROLD. 


261 


son of ray brother Sweyn : thy deeds were done in the 
light of Heaven, in the sight of warriors, in the open 
field : so should thine honors find thee ! Not with the 
vain fripperies of Norman knighthood do I deck thee, 
but make thee one of the elder brotherhood of Minister 
and Miles. I gird round thy loins mine own baldric of 
pure silver ; I place in thy hand mine own sword of plain 
steel, and bid thee rise to take place in council and camps 
amongst the proceres of England, — earl of Hertford and 
Essex. Boy,” whispered the king, as he bent over the 
pale cheek of his nephew, “thank not me. From me the 
thanks should come. On the day that saw Tostig’s crime 
and his death, thou didst purify the name of my brother 
Sweyn! On to our city of York!” 

High banquet was held in York ; and, according to 
the customs of the Saxon monarchs, the king could not 
absent himself from the Victory Feast of his thegns. 
He sate at the head of the board, between his brothers. 
Morcar, whose departure^from the city had deprived him 
of a share in the battle, had arrived that day with his 
brother Edwin, whom he had gone to summon to his aid. 
And though the young earls envied the fame they had 
not shared, the envy was noble. 

Gay and boisterous was the wassail; and lively song, 
long neglected in England, woke, as it wakes ever, at the 
breath of Joy and Fame. As if in the days of Alfred, 
the harp passed from hand to hand : martial and rough 
the strain beneath the touch of the Anglo-Dane, more 
refined and thoughtful the lay when it chimed to the voice 


262 


HAROLD. 


of the Anglo-Saxon. But the memory of Tostig — all 
guilty though he was — a brother slain in war with a 
brother, lay heavy on Harold’s soul. Still, so had he 
schooled and trained himself to live but for England — 
know no joy and no woe not hers — that by degrees and 
strong efforts he shook off his gloom. And music, and 
song, and wine, and blazing lights, and the proud sight 
of those long lines of valiant men, whose hearts had beat 
and whose hands had triumphed in the same cause, all 
aided to link his senses with the gladness of the hour. 

And now, and night advanced, Leofwine, who was 
ever a favorite in the banquet, as Gurth in the council, 
rose to propose the drink-heel , which carries the most 
characteristic of our modern social customs to an antiquity 
so remote. And the roar was hushed at the sight of the 
young earl’s winsome face. With due decorum, he un- 
covered his head,* composed his countenance, and be- 
gan— 

“ Craving forgiveness of my lord the King, and this 
noble assembly,” said Leofwine, “in which are so many 
from whom what I intend to propose would come with 
better grace, I would remind you that William, Count 
of the Normans, meditates a pleasure excursion, of the 
same nature as our late visitor Harold Hardrada’s.” 

A scornful laugh ran through the hall. 

“ And as we English are hospitable folk, and give any 
man, who asks, meat and board for one night, so one 


* The Saxons sat at meals with their heads corered. 


HAROLD. 263 

day’s welcome, methinks, will be all that the Count of 
the Normans will need at our English hands.” 

Flushed with the joyous insolence of wine, the wassail- 
ers roared applause. 

“ Wherefore, this drink-heel to William of Rouen I 
And, to borrow a saying now in every man’s lips, and 
which, I think, our good scops will take care that our 
children’s children shall learn by heart, — since he covets 
our Saxon soil, ‘seven feet of land’ in frank pledge to 
him for ever ! ” 

ll Drink-hcel to William the Norman!” shouted the 
revellers; and each man, with mocking formality, took 
off his cap, kissed his hand, and bowed.* “ Drink-heel 
to William the Norman ! ” and the shout rolled from floor 
to roof — when, in the midst of the uproar, a man all be- 
dabbled with dust and mire, rushed into the hall, rushed 
through the rows of the banqueters, rushed to the throne- 
chair of Haiold, and cried aloud, “William the Norman 
is encamped on the shores of Sussex ; and, with the 
mightiest armament ever yet seen in England, is ravaging 
the land far and near ! ” 


* Henry. 


BOOK TWELFTH. 


THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 


CHAPTER I. 

In the heart of the forest land in which Hilda’s abode 
was situated, a gloomy pool reflected upon its stagnant 
waters the still shadows of the autumnal foliage. As is 
common in ancient forests in the neighborhood of men’s 
wants, the trees were dwarfed in height by repeated lop- 
pings, and the boughs sprang from the hollow, gnarled 
boles of pollard oaks and beeches ; the trunks, vast in 
girth, and covered with mosses and whitening canker- 
stains, or wreaths of ivy, spoke of the most remote 
antiquity ; but the boughs which their lingering and 
mutilated life put forth, were either thiu and feeble with 
innumerable branchlets, or were centred on some solitary 
distorted limb which the woodman’s axe had spared. 
The trees thus assumed all manner of crooked, deformed, 
fantastic shapes — all betokening age, and all decay — all, 
in despite of the noiseless solitude around, proclaiming 
the waste and ravages of man. 

The time was that of the first watches of night, wheD 

( 264 ) 


HAROLD. 


265 


the autumnal moon was brightest and broadest. Yon 
might see, on the opposite side of the pool, the antlers 
of the deer every now and then moving restlessly above 
the fern in which they had made their couch ; and, through 
the nearer glades, the hares and conies stealing forth to 
sport or to feed; or the bat, wheeling low, in chase of the 
forest moth. From the thickest part of the copse came 
a slow human foot, and Hilda, emerging, paused by the 
waters of the pool. That serene and stony calm habitual 
to her features was gone ; sorrow and passion had seized 
the soul of the Yala, in the midst of its fancied security 
from the troubles it presumed to foresee for others. The 
lines of the face were deep and care-worn — age had come 
on with rapid strides — and the light of the eye was vague 
and unsettled, as if the lofty reason shook, terrified in its 
pride, at last. 

“Alone, alone!” she murmured, half aloud; “yea, 
evermore alone ! And the grandchild I had reared to be 
the mother of kings — whose fate, from the cradle, seemed 
linked with royalty and love — in whom, watching and 
hoping for, in whom loving and heeding, methought I 
lived again the sweet human life — hath gone from my 
hearth — forsaken, broken-hearted — withering down to 
the grave under the shade of the barren cloister ! Is 
mine heart, then, all a lie? Are the gods who led Odin 
from the Scythian East but the juggling fiends whom the 
craven Christian abhors? Lo ! Ihe Wine Month has 
come; a few nights more, and the sun which all prophecy 
foretold should go down on the union of the king and the 
II. — 23 


266 


HAROLD. 


maid, shall bring round the appointed day : yet Aldyth 
still lives, and Edith still withers; and War stands side 
by side with the Church, between the betrothed and the 
altar. Yerily, verily, ray spirit hath lost its power, and 
leaves me bowed, in the awe of night, a feeble, aged, 
hopeless, childless woman ! ” 

Tears of human weakness rolled down the Yala’s 
cheeks. At that moment, a laugh came from a thing 
that had seemed like the fallen trunk of a tree, or a 
trough in which the herdsman waters his cattle, so still, 
and shapeless, and undefined it had lain amongst the 
rank weeds and night-shade, and trailing creepers on 
the marge of the pool. The laugh was low, yet fearful 
to hear. 

Slowly, the thing moved, and rose, and took the out- 
line of a human form ; and the Prophetess beheld the 
witch whose sleep she had disturbed by the Saxon’s 
grave. 

“ Where is the banner ? ” said the witch, laying her 
hand on Hilda’s arm, and looking into her face with 
bleared and rheumy eyes ; “ where is the banner thy 
handmaids were weaving for Harold the earl ? Why 
didst thou lay aside that labor of love for Harold the 
king ? Hie thee home, and bid thy maidens ply all night 
at the work ; make it potent with rune and with spell, 
and with gums of the seid. Take the banner to Harold 
the king as a marriage-gift ; for the day of his birth shall 
be still the day of his nuptials with Edith the Fair ! ” 

Hilda gazed on the hideous form before her ; and so 


HAROLD. 


267 


h&J her soul fallen from its arrogant pride of place, that 
instead of the scorn with which so foul a pretender to 
the Great Art had before inspired the King-born Pro- 
phetess, her veins tingled with credulous awe. 

“Art thou a mortal like myself, ” she said after a pause, 
“ or one of those beings often seen by the shepherd in 
mist and rain, driving before them their shadowy flocks? 
one of those of whom no man knoweth whether they are 
of earth or of Helheim ? whether they have ever known 
the lot and conditions of flesh, or are but some dismal 
race between body and spirit, hateful alike to gods and 
to men ? ” 

The dreadful hag shook her head, as if refusing to an- 
swer the question, and said, — 

“ Sit we down, sit we down by the dead dull pool, and 
if thou wouldst be wise as I am, wake up all thy wrongs, 
fill thyself with hate, and let thy thoughts J?e curses. 
Nothing is strong on earth but the Will ; and hate to 
the will is as the iron in the hands of the war-man.” 

“ Ha ! ” answered Hilda, “ then, thou art indeed one 
of the loathsome brood whose magic is born, not of the 
aspiring soul, but the fiend-like heart. And between us 
there is no union. I am of the race of those whom priests 
and kings reverenced and honored as the oracles of Hea- 
ven ; and rather let my lore be dimmed and weakened, in 
admitting the humanities of hope and love, than be light- 
ened by the glare of the wrath that Lok and Rana bear 
the children of men.” 

“ What, art thou so base and so doting,” said the hag, 


268 


HAROLD 


with fierce contempt, “ as to know that another has sup- 
planted thine Edith, that all the schemes of thy life are 
undone, and yet feel no hate for the man who hath wronged 
her and thee ? — the man who had never been king if thou 
hadst not breathed into him the ambition of rule ? Think, 
and curse ! ” 

“My curse would wither the heart that is entwined 
within his,” answered Hilda ; “ and,” she added abruptly, 
as if eager to escape from her own impulses, “ didst thou 
not tell me, even now, that the wrong would be redressed, 
and his betrothed yet be his bride on the appointed day ? ” 

“ Ha ! home, then ! — home ! and weave the charmed 
woof of the banner, broider it with zimmes and with gold 
worthy the standard of a king ; for I tell thee, that where 
that banner is planted, shall Edith clasp with bridal arms 
her adored. And the hwata thou hast read by the bau- 
tastein, and in the temple of the Briton’s revengeful gods, 
shall be fulfilled.” 

“ Dark daughter of Hela,” said the Prophetess, “ whe- 
ther demon or god hath inspired thee, I hear in my spirit 
a voice that tells me thou hast pierced to a truth that my 
lore could not reach. Thou art houseless and poor ; I 
will give wealth to thine age if thou wilt stand with me 
by the altar of Thor, and let thy galdra unriddle the se- 
crets that have baffled mine own. All foreshown to me 
hath ever come to pass, but in a sense other than that in 
which my soul read the rune and the dream, the leaf and 
the fount, the star and the Scin-laeca. My husband slain 


HAROLD. 


269 


in his youth ; my daughter maddened with woe ; her lord 
murdered on his hearth-stone ; Sweyn, whom I loved as 
my child, ” — the Yala paused, contending against her 
own emotions, — “ I loved them all,” she faltered, clasp- 
ing her hands, “ for them I tasked the future. The future 
promised fair ; I lured them to their doom, and when the 
doom came, lo ! the promise was kept ! but how ? — and 
now, Edith, the last of my race ; Harold, the pride of 
my pride I - — speak, thing of Horror and Night, canst 
thou disentangle the web in which my soul struggles, 
weak as the fly in the spider’s mesh ? ” 

“ On the third night from this, will I stand with thee 
by the altar of Thor, and unriddle the rede of my mas- 
ters, unknown and unguessed, whom thou hadst duteously 
served. And ere the sun rise, the greatest mystery earth 
knows shall be bare to thy soul ! ” 

As the witch spoke, a cloud passed over the moon ; 
and before the light broke forth again, the hag had 
vanished. There was only seen in the dull pool, the 
water-rat swimming through the rank sedges ; only in 
the forest, the grey wings of the owl, fluttering heavily 
across the glades ; only in the grass, the red eyes of the 
bloated toad. 

Then Hilda went slowly home, and the maids worked 
all night at the charmed banner. All that night, too, 
the watch-dogs howled in the yard, through the ruined 
peristyle — howled in rage and in fear. And under the 
lattice of the room in which the maids broidered the 
23 * 


270 


HAROLD. 


banner, and the Prophetess muttered her charm, there 
couched, muttering also, a dark, shapeless thing, at which 
those dogs howled in rage and in fear. 


CHAPTER II. 

All within the palace of Westminster showed the 
confusion and dismay of the awful time ; — all, at least, 
save the council-chamber, in which Harold, who had 
arrived the night before, conferred with his thegns. It 
was evening : the court-yards and the halls were filled 
with armed men, and almost with every hour came rider 
and bode from the Sussex shores. In the corridors the 
Churchmen grouped and whispered, as they had whis- 
pered and grouped in the day of King Edward’s death. 
Stigand passed among them, pale and thoughtful. The 
serge gowns came rustling round the Arch-prelate for 
counsel or courage. 

“ Shall we go forth with the King’s army ? ” asked a 
young monk, bolder than the rest, “to animate the host 
with prayer and hymn?” 

“ Fool ! ” said the miserly prelate, “ fool 1 if we do so, 
and the Norman conquer, what become of our abbacies 
and convent lands ? The duke wars against Harold, not 
England. If he slay Harold ” 

“ What then ? ” 

“ The Atheling is left us yet. Stay we here ana guard 


HAROLD. 2T1 

the last prince of the House of Cerdic,” whispered Stigand, 
and he swept on. 

In the chamber in which Edward had breathed his 
last, his widowed Queen, with Aldyth her successor, and 
Githa and some other ladies, waited the decision of the 
council. By one of the windows stood, clasping each 
other by the hand, the fair young bride of Gurth, and 
the betrothed of the gay Leofwine. Githa sate alone, 
bowing her face over her hands — desolate; mourning 
for the fate of her traitor son ; and the wounds, that the 
recent and holier death of Thyra had inflicted, bled afresh. 
And the holy lady of Edward attempted in vain, by pious 
adjurations, to comfort Aldyth, who, scarcely heeding 
her, started ever and anon with impatient terror, mutter- 
ing to herself, “Shall I lose this crown too?” 

In the council-hall, debate waxed warm — which was 
the wiser, to meet William at once in the battle-field, or 
to delay till all the forces Harold might expect (and 
which he had ordered to be levied, in his rapid march 
from York), could swell his host ? 

“If we retire before the enemy,” said Gurth, “leaving 
him in a strange land, winter approaching, his forage will 
fail. He will scarce dare to march upon London : if he 
does, we shall be better prepared to encounter him. My 
voice is against resting all on a single battle.” 

“ Is that thy choice ? ” said Yebba, indignantly. “ Not 
so, I am sure, would have chosen thy father ; not so think 
the Saxons of Kent The Norman is laying waste all the 
lands of thy subjects, Lord Harold ; living on plunder, as 


272 


HAROLD. 


a robber, in the realm of King Alfred. Dost thou think 
that men will get better heart to fight for their country by 
hearing that their king shrinks from the danger?” 

“ Thou speakest well and wisely,” said Haco ; and all 
eyes turned to the young son of Sweyn, as to one who 
best knew the character of the hostile army and the skill 
of its chief. “ We have now with us a force flushed with 
conquest over a foe hitherto deemed invincible. Men who 
have conquered the Norwegian will not shrink from the 
Norman. Victory depends upon ardor more than num- 
bers. Every hour of delay damps the ardor. Are we 
sure that it will swell the numbers ? What I dread most 
is not the sword of the Norman Duke, it is his craft. 
Rely upon it, that if we meet him not soon, he will march 
straight to London. He will proclaim by the way, that 
he comes not to seize the throne, but to punish Harold, 
and abide by the Witan, or perchance by the word of the 
Roman pontiff. The terror of his armament unresisted, 
will spread like a panic through the land. Many will be 
decoyed by his false pretexts, many awed by a force that 
the King dare not meet. If he come in sight of the city, 
think you that merchants and cheapmen will not be 
dau ited by the thought of pillage and sack ? They will 
be the first to capitulate at the first house which is fired. 
The city is weak to guard against siege ; its walls long 
neglected ; and in sieges the Normans are famous. Are 
we so united (the King’s rule thus fresh), but what no 
cabals, no dissensions will break oat amongst ourselves ? 
If the duke come, as come he will, in the name of the 


v 


HAROLD. 


27 a 

Church, may not the Churchmen set up some new pre- 
tender to the crown — perchance the child Edgar? And, 
divided against ourselves, how ingloriously should we 
fall ! Besides, this land, though never before have the 
links between province and province been drawn so close, 
hath yet demarcations that make the people selfish. The 
Northumbrians, I fear, will not stir to aid London, and 
Mercia will hold aloof from our peril. Grant that William 
once seize London, all England is broken up and dispi- 
rited ; each shire, nay, each town looking only to itself. 
Talk of delay as wearing out the strength of the foe ! 
No, it would wear out our own. Little eno’, I fear, is 
yet left in our treasury. If William seize London, that 
treasury is his, with all the wealth of our burgesses. How 
should we maintain an army, except by preying on the 
people, and thus discontenting them ? Where guard that 
army ? Where are our forts ? where our mountains ? The 
war of delay suits only a land of rock and defile, or of 
castle and breast-work. Thegns and warriors, ye have 
no castles but your breasts of mail. Abandon these, and 
you are lost.” 

A general murmur of applause closed this speech of 
Haco, which, while wise in arguments our historians have 
overlooked, came home to that noblest reason of bra\e 
men, which urges prompt resistance to foul invasion. 

Up, then, rose King Harold. 

4 ‘ I thank you, fellow-Englishmen, for that applause 
with which ye have greeted mine own thoughts on the 
lips of Haco. Shall it be said that your King rushed to 
23 * 2r 


2?4 


HAROLD. 


chase his own brother from the soil of outraged England, 
yet shrunk from the sword of the Norman stranger? 
Well, indeed, might my brave subjects desert my banner 
if it floated idly over these palace walls, while the armed 
invader pitched his camp in the heart of England. By 
delay, William’s force, whatever it might be, cannot grow 
less ; his cause grows more strong in our craven fears. 
What his armament may be, we rightly know not ; the 
report varies with every messenger, swelling and lessen- 
ing with the rumors of every hour. Have we not around 
us now our most stalwart veterans — the flower of our 
armies — the most eager spirits — the vanquishers of Har- 
drada ? Thou sayest, Gurth, that all should not be 
perilled on a single battle. True. Harold should be 
perilled, but wherefore England? Grant that we win the 
day ; the quicker our despatch, the greater our fame, the 
more lasting that peace at home and abroad, which rests 
ever its best foundation on the sense of the power, which 
wrong cannot provoke, unchastised. Grant that we lose ; 
a loss can be made gain by a king’s brave death. Why 
should not our example rouse and unite all who survive 
us ? Which the nobler example, the one best fitted to 
protect our country — the recreant backs of living chiefs, 
or the glorious dead with their fronts to the foe ? Come 
what may, life or death, at least we will thin the Norman 
numbers, and heap the barriers of our corpses on the 
Norman march. At least, we can show to the rest of 
England how men should defend their native land I And 
if, as .1 believe and pray, in every English breast beats a 


HAROLD. 


275 


heart like Harold’s, what matters though a king should 
fall? — Freedom is immortal.” 

He spoke; and forth from his baldric he drew his 
sword. Every blade at that signal, leapt from the 
sheath : and in that council-hall at least, in every breast 
beat the heart of Harold. 


CHAPTER III. 

The chiefs dispersed to array their troops for the mor- 
row’s march ; but Harold and his kinsmen entered the 
chamber where the women waited the decision of the 
council ; for that, in truth, was to them the parting inter- 
view. The king had resolved, after completing all his 
martial preparations, to pass the night in the Abbey of 
Waltham ; and his brothers lodged, with the troops they 
commanded, in the city or its suburbs. Haco alone re- 
mained with that portion of the army quartered in and 
around the palace. 

They entered the chamber, and in a moment each heart 
had sought its mate ; in the mixed assembly, each only 
conscious of the other. There, Gurth bowed his noble 
head over the weeping face of the young bride that for 
the last time nestled to his bosom. There, with a smiling 
lip, but tremulous voice, the gay Leofwine soothed and 
chided in a breath the maiden he had wooed as the part* 


276 


HAROLD. 


ner for a life that his mirthful spirit made one holiday ; 
snatching kisses from a cheek no longer coy. 

But cold was the kiss which Harold pressed on the 
brow of Aldyth ; and with something of dij.dain, and of 
bitter remembrance of a nobler love, he comforted a ter- 
ror which sprang from the thought of self. 

“ Oh, Harold ! ” sobbed Aldyth, “ be not rashly brave : 
guard thy life for my sake. Without thee, what am I ? 
Is it even safe for me to rest here ? Were it not better 
to fly to York, or seek refuge with Malcolm the Scot?” 

“ Within three days at the farthest,” answered Harold, 
“ thy brothers will be in London. Abide by their coun- 
sel ; act as they advise at the news of my victory or my 
fall.” 

He paused abruptly, for he heard close beside him the 
broken voice of Gurth’s bride, in answer to her lord. 

“ Think not of me, beloved ; thy whole heart now be 

England’s. And if — if ” — her voice failed a moment, 

but resumed proudly, “ why even thy wife is safe, for she 
survives not her lord and her land ! ” 

The king left his wife’s side, and kissed his brother’s 
bride. 

“Noble heart!” he said; “.with women like thee for 
our wives and mothers, England could survive the slaugh- 
ter of a thousand kings.” 

He turned and knelt to Githa. She threw her arms 
over his broad breast, and wept bitterly. 

“ Say — say, Harold, that I have not reproached thee 
for Tostig’s death. I have obeyed the last commands 


HAROLD. 


271 


of Godwin my lord. I have deemed thee ever right and 
just ; now let me not lose thee, too. They go with thee, 
all my surviving sons, save the exile Wolnoth, — him whom 
now I shall never behold again. Oh, Harold ! — let not 
mine old age be childless ! ” 

“Mother, — dear, dear mother, with these arms round 
my neck I take new life and new heart. No ! never hast 
thou reproached me for my brother’s death — never for 
aught which man’s first duty enjoined. Murmur not that 
that duty commands us still. We are the sons, through 
thee, of royal heroes ; through my father, of Saxon free- 
men. Rejoice that thou hast three sons left, whose arms 
thou mayest pray God and his saints to prosper, and over 
whose graves, if they fall, thou shalt shed no tears of 
shame 1 ” 

Then the widow of King Edward, who (the crucifix 
clasped in her hands), had listened to Harold with lips 
apart and marble cheeks, could keep down no longer her 
human, woman’s heart ; she rushed to Harold as he still 
knelt to Githa — knelt by his side, and clasped him in her 
arms with despairing fondness : — 

“0 brother, brother, whom I have so deeply loved 
when all other love seemed forbidden me ; — when he who 
gave me a throne refused me his heart ; when, looking at 
thy fair promise, listening to thy tender comfort, — when, 
remembering the days of old, in which thou wert my do- 
cile pupil, and we dreamed bright dreams together of 
happiness and fame to come, — when, loving thee, rae- 
thought too well, too much as weak mothers may love a 
II. ^24 


278 


HAROLD. 


mortal son, I prayed God to detach my heart from earth ; 
—oh, Harold ! now forgive me all my coldness ? I shud- 
der at thy resolve. I dread that thou shouldst meet this 
man, whom an oath hath bound thee to obey. Nay, 
frown not — I bow to thy will, my brother and my king. 
I know that thou hast chosen as thy conscience sanctions, 
as thy duty ordains. But come back — oh, come back — 
thou who, like me [her voice whispered], hast sacrificed 
the household hearth to thy country’s altars, — and I will 
never pray to Heaven to love thee less — my brother, oh 
my brother ! ” 

In all the room were then heard but the low sounds of 
sobs and broken exclamations. All clustered to one spot 
— Leofwine and his betrothed — Gurth and his bride — 
even the selfish Aldyth, ennobled by the contagion of the 
sublime emotion, — all clustered round Githa the mother 
of the three guardians of the fated land, and all knelt 
before her by the side of Harold. Suddenly, the widowed 
queen, the virgin wife of the last heir of Cerdic, rose, 
and holding on high the sacred rood over those bended 
heads, said, with devout passion, — 

“ 0 Lord of hosts — we children of Doubt and Time, 
trembling in the dark, dare not take to ourselves to ques- 
tion thine unerring will. Sorrow and death, as joy and 
life, are at the breath of a mercy divine, and a wisdom 
all-seeing : and out of the hours of evil thou drawest, in 
mystic circle, the eternity of Good. ‘ Thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven.’ If, 0 Disposer of events, 
our human prayers are not adverse to thy pre-judged 


HAROLD. 


279 


decrees, protect these lives, the bulwarks of our homes 
and altars, sons whom the land offers as a sacrifice. May 
thine angel turn aside the blade — as of old from the heart 
of Isaac ! But if, 0 Ruler of Nations, in whose sight 
the ages are as moments, and generations but as sands in 
the sea, these lives are doomed, may the death expiate 
their sins, and, shrived on the battle-field, absolve and 
receive the souls 1 ” 


CHAPTER IV. 

By the altar of the abbey church of Waltham, that 
night, knelt Edith in prayer for Harold. 

She had taken up her abode in a small convent of nuns 
that adjoined the more famous monastery of Waltham ; 
but she had promised Hilda not to enter on the novitiate, 
until the birth-day of Harold had passed. She, herself, 
had no longer faith in the omens and prophecies that had 
deceived her youth and darkened her life ; and, in the 
more congenial air of our holy Church, the spirit ever so 
chastened, grew calm and resigned. But the tidings of 
the Norman’s coming, and the king’s victorious return to 
his capital, had reached even that still retreat; and love, 
which had blent itself with religion, led her steps to that 
lonely altar. And suddenly, as she there knelt, only 
lighted by the moon through the high casements, she wa-s 
startled by the sound of approaching feet and murmuring 


280 


HAROLD. 


voices. She rose in alarm — the door of the church was 
thrown open — torches advanced — and amongst the monks, 
between Osgood and Aired, came the king. He had 
come, that last night before his march, to invoke the 
prayers of that pious brotherhood ; and by the altar he 
had founded, to pray, himself, that his one sin of faith 
forfeited and oath abjured, might not palsy his arm and 
weigh on his soul in the hour of his country’s need. 

Edith stifled the cry that rose to her lips, as the torches 
fell on the pale and hushed and melancholy face of Ha- 
rold ; and she crept away under the arch of the vast Saxon 
columns, and into the shade of abutting walls. The monks 
and the king, intent on their holy office, beheld not that 
solitary and shrinking form. They approached the altar ; 
and there the king knelt down lowlily, and none heard 
the prayer. But, as Osgood held the sacred rood over 
the bended head of the royal suppliant, the image on the 
crucifix, (which had been a gift from Aired, the prelate, 
and was supposed to have belonged of old to Augustine, 
the first founder of the Saxon church — so that by the 
superstition of the age, it was invested with miraculous 
virtues,) bowed itself visibly. Visibly, the pale and ghastly 
image of the suffering God bowed over the head of the 
kneeling man ; whether the fastenings of the rood were 
loosened, or from what cause soever, — in the eyes of all 
the brotherhood, the image bowed.* 

A thrill of terror froze every heart, save Edith’s, too 
remote to perceive the portent, and save the king’s, whom 


Palgrave — ‘ Hist, of Anglo-Saxons.’ 


HAROLD. 


281 


the omen seemed to doom, for his face was buried in h\3 
clasped hands. Heavy was his heart, nor needed it other 
warnings than its own gloom. 

Long and silently prayed the king ; and when at last 
he rose, and the monks, though with altered and tremu- 
lous voices, began their closing hymn, Edith passed noise- 
lessly along the wall ; and, stealing through one of the 
smaller doors which communicated to the nunnery an- 
nexed, gained the solitude of her own chamber. There 
she stood, benumbed with the strength of her emotions 
at the sight of Harold, thus abruptly presented. How 
had the fond human heart leapt to meet him ! Twice, 
thus, in the august ceremonials of religion, secret, shrink- 
ing, unwitnessed, had she, his betrothed, she, the partner 
of his soul, stood aloof to behold him. She had seen 
him in the hour of his pomp, the crown upon his brow, — 
seen him in the hour of his peril and agony, that anointed 
head bowed to the earth. And, in the pomp that she 
could not share, she had exulted ; but, oh, now — now, — 
Oh now that she could have knelt beside that humbled 
form, and prayed with that voiceless prayer ! 

The torches flashed in the court, below ; the church 
was again deserted ; the monks passed in mute proces- 
sion back to their cloister : but a single man paused, 
turned aside, and stopped at the gate of the humbler con- 
vent : a knocking was heard at the great oaken door, and 
the watch-dog barked. Edith started, pressed her hand 
on her heart, and trembled. Steps approached her door 
24 * 


282 


HAROLD. 


- — and this abbess, entering, summoned her below, to hear 
the farewell greeting of her cousin, the king. 

Harold stood in the simple hall of the cloister : a single 
taper, tall and wan, burned on the oak board. The ab- 
bess led Edith by the hand ; and, at a sign from the king, 
withdrew. So, once more upon earth, the betrothed and 
divided were alone. 

“Edith,” said the king, in a voice in which no ear but 
hers could have detected the struggle, “ do not think I 
have come to disturb thy holy calm, or sinfully revive the 
memories of the irrevocable past : where once on my 
breast, in the old far’iion of our fathers, I wrote thy 
name, is written now the name of the mistress that sup- 
plants thee. Into Eternity melts the Past; but I could 
not depart to a field from which there is no retreat — in 
which, against odds that men say are fearful, I have re- 
solved to set my crown and my life — without once more 
beholding thee, pure guardian of my happier days ! Thy 
forgiveness for all the sorrow that, in the darkness which 
surrounds man’s hopes and dreams, I have brought on 
thee, (dread return for love so enduring, so generous and 
divine 1) — tny forgiveness I will not ask. Thou alone, 
perhaps, on earth knowest the soul of Harold ; and if he 
hath wronged thee, thou seest alike in the wronger and 
the wronged, but the children of iron Duty, the servants 

of imperial Heaven. Not thy forgiveness I ask — but 

but — Edith, holy maid! angel soul! — thy — thy bless- 
ing ! ” His voice faltered, and he inclined his lofty head 
as to a saint. 


HAROLD. 


28 ? 


*‘ Oh that I had the power to bless ! ” exclaimed Edith, 
mastering her rush of tears with an heroic effort ; “ and 
methinks I have the power — not from virtues of my own, 
but from all that I owe to thee ! The grateful have the 
power to bless. For what do I not owe to thee — owe to 
that very love, of which even the grief is sacred ? Poor 
child in the house of the heathen, thy love descended 
upon me, and in it, the smile of God ! In that love my 
spirit awoke, and was baptized : every thought that has 
risen from earth, and lost itself in Heaven, was breathed 
into my heart by thee ! Thy creature and thy slave, 
hadst thou tempted me to sin, sin had seemed hallowed 
by thy voice ; but thou saidst, 1 True love is virtue,’ and 
so I worshipped virtue in loving thee. Strengthened, 
purified, by thy bright companionship, from thee came 
the strength to resign thee — from thee the refuge under 
the wings of God — from thee the firm assurance, that 
our union yet shall be — not as our poor Hilda dreams on 
the perishable earth, — but there 1 oh, there ! yonder, by 
the celestial altars, in the land in which all spirits are 
filled with love. Yes, soul of Harold 1 there are might 
and holiness in the blessing, the soul thou hast redeemed 
and reared, sheds on thee ! ” 

And so beautiful, so unlike the Beautiful of the common 
earth, looked the maid as she thus spoke, and laid hands, 
trembling with no human passion, on that royal head — • 
that could a soul from paradise be made visible, such 
might be the shape it would wear to a mortal’s eye ! 
Thus, for some moments both were silent ; and in the 


284 


HAROLD 


silence the gloom vanished from the heart of Harold, and, 
through a deep and sublime serenity, it rose undaunted 
to front the future. 

No embrace — no farewell kiss — profaned the parting 
of those pure and noble spirits — parting on the threshold 
of the grave. It was only the spirit that clasped the 
spirit, looking forth from the clay into measureless 
eternity. Not till the air of night came once more on 
his brow, and the moonlight rested on the roofs and fanes 
of the land entrusted to his charge, was the man once 
more the human hero ; not till she was alone in her deso- 
late chamber, and the terrors of the coming battle-field 
chased the angel from her thoughts, was the maid inspired 
once more the weeping woman. 

A little after sun-rise, the abbess, w'ho was distantly 
akiu to the house of Godwin, sought Edith, so agitated 
by her own fear that she did not remark the trouble of 
her visitor. The supposed miracle of the sacred image 
bowing over the kneeling king, had spread dismay through 
the cloisters of both nunnery and abbey ; and so intense 
was the disquietude of the two brothers, Osgood and 
Aired, in the simple and grateful affection they bore 
their royal benefactor, that they had obeyed the impulse 
of their tender, credulous hearts, and left the monastery 
with the dawn, intending to follow the king’s march,* 
and watch and pray near the awfful battle-field. Edith 
listened, and made no reply ; the terrors of the abbess 


* Palgrave — “ Hist, of Anglo-Saxons 


HAROLD. 


286 


infected her ; the example of the two monks woke the 
sole thought which stirred through the nightmare dream 
that suspended reason itself; and when, at noon, the 
abbess again sought the chamber, Edith was gone ; — 
gone, and alone — none knew wherefore — none guessed 
whither. 

All the pomp of the English army burst upon Harold’s 
liew, as, in the rising sun, he approached the bridge of 
the capital. Over that bridge came the stately march, 
— battle-axe, and spear, and banner, glittering in the 
ray. And as he drew aside, and the forces defiled before 
him, the cry of “ God save King Harold I ” rose with loud 
acclaim and lusty joy, borne over the waves of the river, 
startling the echoes in the ruined keape of the Homan, 
heard in the halls restored by Canute, and chiming, like 
a chorus, with the chaunts of the monks by the tomb of 
Sebba in St. Paul’s, — by the tomb of Edward at St. 
Peter’s. 

With a brightened face, and a kindling eye, the king 
saluted his lines, and then fell into the ranks towards the 
rear, where, among the burghers of London and the 
lithsmen of Middlesex, the immemorial custom of Saxon 
monarchs placed the kingly banner. And, looking up, 
he beheld, not his old standard with the Tiger-heads and 
the Cross, but a banner both strange and gorgeous. On 
a field of gold was the effigies of a Fighting Warrior; 
and the arms were bedecked in orient pearls, and the 
borders blazed in the rising sun, with ruby, amethyst, 
and emerald. While be gazed, wonderingly, on this 


286 


HAROLD. 


dazzling ensign, Haco, who rode beside the standard- 
bearer, advanced and gave him a letter. 

“Last night,” said he, “ after thou hadst left the palace, 
many recruits, chiefly from Hertfordshire and Essex, came 
in ; but the most gallant and stalwart of all, in arms and 
in stature, were the lithsmen of Hilda. With them came 
this banner, on which she has lavished the gems that 
have passed to her hand through long lines of northern 
ancestors, from Odin, the founder of all northern thrones 
So, at least, said the bode of our kinswoman.” 

Harold had already cut the silk round the letter, and 
was reading its contents. They ran thus : — 

“ King of England, I forgive thee the broken heart of 
my grandchild. They whom the land feeds, should defend 
the land. 1 send to thee, in tribute, the best fruits that 
grow in the field and the forest, round the house which 
my husband took from the bounty of Canute; — stout 
hearts and strong hands ! Descending alike, as do Hilda 
and Harold, (through Githa thy mother,) from the 
Warrior God of the North, whose race never shall fail — 
take, 0 defender of the Saxon children of Odin, the 
banner I have broidered with the gems that the Chief of 
the Asas bore from the East. Firm as love be thy foot, 
strong as death be thy hand, under the shade which the 
banner of Hilda, — under the gleam which the jewels ot 
Odin, — cast on the brows of the king! So Hilda, the 
daughter of monarchs, greets Harold, the leader of men.” 

Harold looked up from the letter, and Haco re- 
sumed : — 


HAROLD. 


287 


“ Thou canst guess not the cheering effect which this 
banner, supposed to be charmed, and which the name 
of Odin alone would suffice to make holy, at least with 
thy fierce Anglo-Danes, hath already produced through 
the army.” 

“It is well, Haco,” said Harold with a smile. “Let 
priest add his blessing to Hilda’s charm, and Heaven 
will pardon any magic that makes more brave the hearts 
that defend its altars. Now fall we back, for the army 
must pass beside the hill with the crommel and grave- 
stone ; there, be sure, Hilda will be at watch for our 
march, and we will linger a few moments to thank her 
somewhat for her banner, yet more justly, methinks, for 
her men. Are not yon stout fellows all in mail, so tall 
and so orderly, in advance of the London burghers, 
Hilda’s aid to our Fyrd ? ” 

“ They are,” answered Haco. 

The king backed his steed to accost them with his 
kingly greeting ; and then, with Haco, falling yet farther 
to the rear, seemed engaged in inspecting the numerous 
wains, bearing missiles and forage, that always accom- 
panied the march of a Saxon army, and served to 
strengthen its encampment. But when they came in 
sight of the hillock by which the great body of the army 
had preceded them, the king and the son of Sweyn dis- 
mounted, and on foot entered the large circle of the 
Celtic ruin. 

By the side of the Teuton altar they beheld two forms, 
ci th perfectly motionless : but one was extended on the 


288 


HAROLD. 


ground as in sleep or in death ; the other sate beside it, 
as if watching the corpse, or guarding the slumber. The 
face of the last was not visible, propped upon the arms 
which rested on the knees, and hidden by the hands. But 
in the face of the other, as the two men drew near, they 
recognized the Danish Prophetess. Death in its dreadest 
characters was written on that ghastly face ; woe and' 
terror, beyond all words to describe, spoke in the hag- 
gard brow, the distorted lips, and the wild glazed stare 
of the open eyes. At the startled cry of the intruders 
on that dreary silence, the living form moved ; and though 
still leaning its face on its hands, it raised its head ; and 
never countenance of northern vampire, cowering by the 
rifled grave, was more fiend-like and appalling. 

“ Who and what art thou ? ” said the king ; “ and how, 
thus unhonored in the air of heaven, lies the corpse of 
the noble Hilda? Is this the hand of nature ? Haco, 
Haco, so look the eyes, so set the features, of those whom 
the horror of ruthless murder slays even before the steel 
strikes. Speak, hag — art thou dumb?” 

“ Search the body,” answered the witch, “there is no 
wound! Look to the throat, — no mark of the deadly 
gripe ! I have seen such in my day. There are none on 
this corpse, I trow ; yet thou sayest rightly, horror slew 
her ! Ha, ha ! she would know, and she hath known ; 
she would raise the dead and the demon ; she hath raised 
them ; she would read the riddle— she hath read it. Pale 
king and dark youth, would ye learn what Hilda saw, 
eh ? eh ? Ask her in the Shadow-World where she awaits 


HAROLD. 


289 


ye ! Ha ! ye too would be wise in the future ; ye too 
would climb to Heaven through the mysteries of hell. 
Worms ! worms 1 crawl back to the clay — to the earth ! 
One such night as the hag ye despise enjoys as her sport 
ar.d her glee, would freeze your veins, and sere the life in 
your eye-balls, and leave your corpses to terror and won- 
der, like the carcase that lies at your feet ! ” 

“ Ho 1 ” cried the king, stamping his foot, “ Hence, 
Haco ; rouse the household ; summon hither the hand- 
maids ; call henchman and ceorl to guard this foul raven.” 

Haco obeyed ; but when he returned with the shudder- 
ing and amazed attendants, the witch was gone, and the 
king was leaning against the altar with downcast eyes, 
and a face troubled and dark with thought. 

The body of the Vala was borne into the house ; and 
the king, waking from his reverie, bade them send for 
the priests, and ordered masses for the parted soul. Then 
kneeling, with pious hand he closed the eyes and smoothed 
the features, and left, his mournful kiss on the icy brow. 
These offices fulfilled, he took Haco’s arm, and leaning 
on it, returned to the spot on which they had left their 
steeds. Not evincing surprise or awe, — emotions that 
seemed unknown to his gloomy, settled, impassible na- 
ture — Haco said calmly, as they descended the knoll, — 
“What evil did the hag predict to thee?” 

“ Haco,” answered the king, “ yonder, by the shores 
of Sussex, lies all the future which our eyes now should 
scan, and our hearts should be firm to meet. These 
omens and apparitions are but the ghosts of a dead Re- 
II. — 25 2s 


290 


HAROLD. 


ligion ; spectres sent from the grave of the fearful 
Heathenesse ; they may appal but to lure us from our 
duty. Lo, as we gaze around — the ruins of all the creeds 
that have made the hearts of men quake with unsubstan- 
tial awe — lo, the temple of the Briton ! — lo, the fane of 
the Roman ! — lo, the mouldering altar of our ancestral 
Thor ! Ages past lie wrecked around us in these shat- 
tered symbols. A new age hath risen, and a new creed. 
Keep we to the broad truths before us ; duty here ; know- 
ledge comes alone in the Hereafter.” 

“ That Hereafter ! — is it not near ?” murmured Haco. 

They mounted in silence; and ere 'they regained the 
army, paused, by a common impulse, and looked behind. 
Awful in their desolation rose the temple and the altar ! 
And in Hilda’s mysterious death it seemed that their last 
and lingering Genius, — the Genius of the dark and fierce, 
the warlike and the wizard North, had expired for ever. 
Yet, on the outskirt of the forest, dusk and shapeless, 
that witch without a name stood in the shadow, pointing 
towards them, with outstretched arm, in vague and de- 
nouncing menace ; — as if, come what may, all change of 
creed, — be the faith ever so simple, the truth ever so 
bright and clear, — there is a superstition native to that 
Border-land between the Visible and the Unseen, which 
will find its priest and its votaries, till the full and crown- 
ing splendor of Heaven shall melt every shadow fi\>m 
the world 1 


II A R OLD 


29) 


CHAPTER V. 

On the broad plain between Pevensey and Hastings, 
Duke William had arrayed his armaments. In the rear 
he had built a castle of wood, all the framework of which 
he Lad brought with him, and which was to serve as a 
refuge in case of retreat. His ships he had run into deep 
water and scuttled ; so that the thought of return, without 
victory, might be banished from his miscellaneous and 
multitudinous force. His outposts stretched for miles, 
keeping watch night and day. against surprise. The 
ground chosen was adapted for* all the manoeuvres of a 
cavalry never before paralleled in England, nor perhaps 
in the world, — almost every horseman a knight, almost 
every knight fit to be a chief. And on this space William 
reviewed his army, and there planned and schemed, re- 
hearsed and re-formed, all the stratagems the great day 
might call forth. But most careful, and laborious, and 
minute, was he in the manoeuvre of a feigned retreat. 
Not, ere the acting of some modern play, does the anxious 
manager more elaborately marshal each man, each look, 
each gesture, that are to form a picture on which the 
curtain shall fall amidst deafening plaudits, than did the 
laborious captain appoint each man, and each movement, 
in his lure to a valiant foe: — The attack of the foot, 
their recoil, their affected panic, their broken exclama 


292 


HAROLD. 


tions of despair ; — their retreat, first partial and reluct- 
ant, next seemingly hurried and complete, — flying, but 
in flight carefully confused: — then the settled watch- 
word, the lightning rally, the rush of the cavalry from 
the ambush ; the sweep and hem round the pursuing fee, 
the detachment of levelled spears to cut off the Saxon 
return to the main force, and the lost ground, — were all 
directed by the most consummate mastership in the stago- 
play, or upolcrisis, of war, and seized by the adroitness 
of practised veterans. 

Not now, 0 Harold ! hast thou to contend against the 
rude heroes of the Norse, with their ancestral strategy 
unimproved ! The Civilization of Battle meets thee 
now ! — and all the craft of the Roman guides the man- 
hood of the North. 

It was in the midst of such lessons to his foot and his 
horsemen — spears gleaming — pennons tossing — lines 
re-forming — steeds backing, wheeling, flying, circling — 
that William’s eye blazed, and his deep voice thundered 
the thrilling word ; when Mallet de Graville, who was in 
command at one of the outposts, rode up to him at full 
speed, and said in gasps, as he drew breath, — 

“King Harold and his army are advancing furiously. 
Their object is clearly to come on us unawares.” 

“ Hold ! ” said the duke, lifting his hand ; and the 
knights around him halted in their perfect discipline ; 
then after a frw brief but distinct orders to Odo, Fitz- 
osborne, and some other of his leading chiefs, he headed 
a numerous cavalcade of his knights, and rode fast to the 


HAROLD. 


293 


outpost which Mallet had left, — to catch sight of the 
coming foe. 

The horsemen cleared the plain — passed through a 
wood, mournfully fading into autumnal hues — and, on 
emerging, they saw the gleam of Saxon spears rising on 
the brows of the gentle hills beyond. But even the time, 
short as it was, that had sufficed to bring William in view 
of the enemy, had sufficed also, under the orders of his 
generals, to give to the wide plain of his encampment 
all the order of a host prepared. And William, having 
now mounted on a rising ground, turned from the spears 
on the hill-tops, to his own fast-forming lines on the 
plain, and said with a stern smile, — 

“Methinks the Saxon usurper, if he be among those 
on the height of yon hills, will vouchsafe us time to 
breathe. St. Michael gives his crown to our hands, and 
his corpse to the crow, if he dare to descend. ” 

And so indeed, as the duke with a soldier’s eye foresaw 
from a soldier’s skill, so it proved. The spears rested on 
the summits. It soon became evident that the English 
general perceived that here there was no Hardrada to 
surprise ; that the news brought to his ear had exagger- 
ated neither the numbers, nor the arms, nor the discipline 
of tne Norman ; and that the battle was not to the bold, 
but to the wary. 

“ He doth right,” said William, ipusingly ; “ nor think, 
0 my quens, that we shall find a fool’s hot brain under 
Harold’s helmet of iron. How is this broken ground of 
hillock and valley named in our chart? It is strange 
25 * 


294 


HAROLD. 


that we should have overlooked its strength, and suffered 
it thus to fall into the hands of the foe. How is it 
named? Can any of ye remember?” 

“ A Saxon peasant,” said He Graville, “told me that 
the ground was called Senlac * or Sanglac, or some such 
name, in their musicless jargon.” 

“ Gramercy ! ” quoth Grantmesnil, “ methinks the name 
will be familiar eno’ hereafter; no jargon seemeth the 
sound to my ear — a significant name, and ominous — 
Sanglac, Sanguelac — the Lake of Blood.” 

“ Sanguelac ! ” said the duke, startled ; “ where have I 
heard that name before ? it must have been between 
sleeping and waking — Sanguelac, Sanguelac! — truly 
sayest thou, through a lake of blood we must wade in- 
deed ! » 

“Yet,” said De Graville, “thine astrologer foretold 
that thou wouldst win the realm without a battle.” 

“Poor astrologer !” said William, “the ship he sailed 
in was lost. Ass indeed is he who pretends to warn 
others, nor sees an inch before his eyes what his own fate 
will be ! Battle shall we have, but not yet. Hark thee, 
Guillaume, thou hast been guest with this usurper ; thou 
hast seemed to me to have some love for him — a love 
natural, since thou didst once fight by his side ; wilt thou 
go from me to the Saxon host w r ith Hugues Maigrot, the 
monk, and back tha message I shall send?” 

* The battle-field of Hastings seems to have been called Senlae, 
before the Conquest, — -Sanguelac after it. 


HAROLD. 


295 


The proud and punctilious Norman thrice crossed him- 
self ere he answered, — 

“There was a time, Count William, when I should 
have deemed it honor to hold parle with Harold the brave 
earl ; but now, with the crown on h^s head, I hold it 
shame and disgrace to barter words with a knight unleal 
and a man forsworn.’’ 

“ Natheless, thou shalt do me this favor,” said William, 
“for” (and he took the knight somewhat aside) “I can- 
not disguise from thee that I look anxiously on the 
chance of battle. Yon men are flushed with new triumph 
over the greatest warrior Norway ever knew ; they will 
fight on their own soil, and under a chief whom I have 
studied and read with more care than the Comments of 
Caesar, and in whom the guilt of perjury cannot blind me 
to the wit of a great general. If we can yet get our end 
without battle, large shall be my thanks to thee, and I 
will hold thine astrologer a man wise, though unhappy.” 

“Certes,” said De Graville gravely, “it were discour- 
teous to the memory of the star-seer, not to make somo 
effort to prove his science a just oue. And the Chal- 
deans ” 

“ Plague seize the Chaldeans!” muttered the duke. 
“ Ride with me back to the camp, that I may give thee 
my message, and instruct also the monk.” 

“ De Graville,” resumed the duke, as they rode to- 
wards the lines, “ my meaning is briefly this. I do not 
think that Harold will accept my offers and resign his 
crown, but I design to spread dismay, and perhaps re- 


296 


HAROLD. 


volt, amongst his captains ; I wish that they may know 
that the Church lays its Curse on those who fight against 
my consecrated banner. I do not ask thee, therefore, to 
demean thy knighthood, by seeking to cajole the usurper ; 
no, but rather boldly to denounce his perjury, and startle 
his liegemen. Perchance they may compel him to terms 
— perchance they may desert his banner; at the worst 
they shall be daunted with full sense of the guilt of his 
cause. ” 

“Ha, now I comprehend thee, noble count; and trust 
me I will speak as Norman and knight should speak.” 

Meanwhile, Harold, seeing the utter hopelessness of all 
sudden assault, had seized a general’s advantage of the 
ground he had gained. Occupying the line of hills, he 
began forthwith to entrench himself behind deep ditches 
and artful palisades. It is impossible now to stand on 
that spot, without recognizing the military skill with 
which the Saxon had taken his post, and formed his pre- 
cautions. He surrounded the main body of his troops 
with a perfect breastwork against the charge of the horse. 
Stakes and strong hurdles, interwoven with osier plaits, 
and protected by deep dykes, served at once to neutralize 
that arm in which William was most powerful, and in 
which Harold almost entirely failed ; while the possession 
of the ground must compel the foe to march, and to 
charge, up hill, against all the missiles which the Saxons 
could pour down from their entrenchments. 

Aiding, animating, cheering, directing all, while the 
dykes were fast hollowed, and the breastworks fast rose, 


HAROLD. 


297 


the king of EngJund rode his palfrey from line to line, 
and work to work, when, looking up, he saw Haco lead- 
ing towards him, up the slope, a monk, and a warrior 
whom, by the banderol on his spear, and the cross on his 
shield, he knew to be one of the Norman knighthood. 

At that moment, Gurth and Leofwine, and those 
thegns who commanded counties, were thronging round 
their chief for instructions. The king dismounted, and 
beckoning them to follow, strode towards the spot on 
which had just been planted his royal standard. There 
halting, he said with a grave smile, — 

“I perceive that the Norman count hath sent us his 
bodes ; it is meet that with me, you, the defenders of 
England, should hear what the Norman saith.” 

“ If he saith aught but prayer for his men to return to 
Rouen, — needless his message, and short our answer,” 
said Yebba, the bluff thegn of Kent. 

Meanwhile the monk and the Norman knight drew 
near, and paused at some short distance, while Haco, ad- 
vancing, said briefly, — 

“ These men I found at our out-posts ; they demand to 
speak with the king.” 

“ Under his standard the king will hear the Norman 
invader,” replied Harold; “bid them speak.” t 

The same sallow, mournful, ominous countenance, which 
Harold had before seen in the halls of Westminster, rising 
death-like above the serge garb of the Benedict of Caen, 
now presented itself, and the monk thus spoke, — 

“In the name of William, duke of the Normans in the 

25 * 


298 


HAROLD. 


field, count of Rouen in the hall, claimant of all the realm9 
of Anglia, Scotland, and the Walloons, held under Ed- 
ward his cousin, I come to thee, Harold, his liege and 
earl.” 

“ Change thy titles, or depart,” said Harold, fiercely, 
his brow no longer mild in its majesty, but dark as mid- 
night. “ What says William the count of the foreigners, 
to Harold, king of the Angles, and Basileus of Britain ? ” 

“ Protesting against thy assumption, I answer thee 
thus,” said Hugues Maigrot. “ First, again he offers thee 
all Northumbria, up to the realm of the Scottish sub-king, 
if thou wilt fulfil thy vow and cede him the crown.” 

“ Already have I answered, — the crown is not mine to 
give ; and my people stand round me in arms to defend 
the king of their choice. What next ? ” 

“ Next offers William to withdraw his troops from the 
land, if thou and thy council and chiefs, will submit to the 
arbitremeut of our most holy Pontiff, Alexander the Se- 
cond, and abide by his decision whether thou or my liege 
have the best right to the throne.” 

“ This, as Churchman,” said the Abbot of the great 
cor. vent of Peterborough (who, with the Abbot of Hide, 
haa joined the march of Harold, deeming as one the cause 
of altar and throne), “this, as Churchman, may I take 
leave to answer. Never yet hath it been heard in Eng- 
land, that the spiritual suzerain of Rome should give us 
our kings.” 

“And,” said Harold, with a bitter smile, “the Pope 
hath already summoned me to this trial, as if the laws 


HAROLD. 


299 


of England were kept in the rolls of the V atican ! Already, 
if rightly informed, the pope hath been pleased to decide 
that our Saxon land is the Norman’s. I reject a judge 
without a right to decide ; and I mock at a sentence that 
profanes Heaven in its insult to men. Is this all ? ” 

“ One last offer yet remains,” replied the monk, sternly. 
“ This knight shall deliver its import. But ere I depart, 
and thou and thine are rendered up to Vengeance Divine, 
I speak the word of a mightier chief than William of 
Rouen. Thus saith his holiness, with whom rests the 
power to bind and to loose, to bless and to curse : — 
* Harold, the Perjurer, thou art accursed ! On thee and 
on all who lift hand in thy cause, rests the interdict of 
the Church. Thou art excommunicated from the family 
of Christ. On thy land, with its peers and its people, 
yea, to the beast in the field and the bird in the air, to 
the seed as the sower, the harvest as the reaper, rest? 
God’s anathema ! The bull of the Vatican is in the tent 
of the Norman ; the gonfanon of St. Peter hallows yon 
armies to the service of Heaven. March on, then : ye 
march as the Assyrian ; and the angel of the Lord awaits 
ye on the way.” 

At these words, which for the first time apprised the 
Euglish leaders that their king and kingdom were under 
the awful ban of excommunication, the thegns and abbots 
gazed on each other aghast. A visible shudder passed 
over the whole warlike conclave, save only three, Harold, 
and Turth, and Haco. 

The king himself was so moved by indignation at the 


300 


HAROLD. 


insolence of the monk, and by scorn at the fulmen, which 
resting not alone on his own head, presumed to blast the 
liberties of a nation, that he strode towards the speaker, 
and it is even said of him by the Norman chroniclers, 
that he raised his hand as if to strike the denouncer to 
the earth. 

But Gurth interposed, and with his clear eye serenely 
shining with virtuous passion, he stood betwixt monk 
and king. 

“ O thou,” he exclaimed, “ with the words of religion 
on thy lips, and the devices of fraud in thy heart, hide 
thy front in thy cowl, and slink back to thy master. Heard 
ye not, thegns and abbots, heard ye not this bad, false 
man offer, as if for peace, and as with the desire of jus- 
tice, that the Pope should arbitrate between your king 
and the Norman ? yet all the while the monk knew that 
the Pope had already predetermined the cause ; and had 
ye fallen into the wile, ye would but have cowered under 
the verdict of a judgment that has presumed, even before 
it invoked ye to the trial, to dispose of a free people and 
an ancient kingdom 1” 

“ It is true, it is true,” cried the thegns, rallying from 
their first superstitious terror, and, with their plain English 
sense of justice, revolted at the perfidy which the priest’s 
overtures had concealed. “ We will hear no more ; away 
with the Swikebode.” * 

The pale cheek of the monk turned yet paler, he seemed 


* Traitor messenger 


HAROLD. 


301 


abashed by the storm of resentment he had provoked ; 
and in some fear, perhaps, at the dark faces bent on him, 
he slunk behind his comrade the knight, who as yet had 
said nothing, but, his face concealed by his helmet, stood 
motionless like a steel statue. And, in fact, these two 
ambassadors, the one in his monk garb, the other in h.is 
iron array, were types and representatives of the two 
forces now brought to bear upon Harold and England — 
Chivalry and the Church. 

At the momentary discomfiture of the priest, now stood 
forth the warrior ; and throwing back his helmet, so that 
the whole steel cap rested on the nape of the neck, leaving 
the haughty face and half-shaven head bare, Mallet de 
Graville thus spoke : — 

“ The ban of the Church is against ye, warriors and 
chiefs of England, but for the crime of one man ! Re- 
move it from yourselves : on his single head be the curse 
and the consequence. Harold, called King of England 
— failing the two milder offers of my comrade, thus saith 
from the lips of his knight (once thy guest, thy admirer, 
and friend), thus saith William the Norman : — ‘ Though 
sixty thousand warriors under the banner of the Apostle 
wait at his beck (and from what I see of thy force, thou 
canst marshal to thy guilty side scarce a third of the 
number), yet will Count William lay aside all advantage, 
save what dwells in strong arm and good cause; and 
here, in presence of thy thegns, I challenge thee, in his 
name, to decide the sway of this realm by single battle. 
On horse and in mail, with sword and with spear, knight 
IT. — 26 


S02 


HAROLD. 


to knight, man to man, wilt thou meet William the Nor- 
man ? n 

Before Harold could reply, and listen to the first im- 
pulse of a valor, which his worst Norman maligner, in 
the after day of triumphant calumny, never so lied as to 
impugn, the thegns themselves, almost with one voice, 
took up the reply. 

“No strife between a man and a man shall decide the 
liberties of thousands!” 

“ Never 1 ” exclaimed Gurth. “ It were an insult to 
the whole people to regard this as a strife between two 
chiefs — which should wear a crown. When the invader 
is in our land, the war is with a nation, not a king. And, 
by the very offer, this Norman count (who cannot even 
speak our tongue) shows how little he knows of the laws, 
by which, under our native kings, we have all as great 
an interest as a king himself in our fatherland.” 

“ Thou hast heard the answer of Eng-land from those 
lips, Sire de Graville,” said Harold : “ mine but repeat 
and sanction it. I will not give the crown to William 
in lieu for disgrace and an earldom. I will not abide by 
the arbitrement of a pope who has dared to affix a curse 
upon freedom. I will not so violate the principle which 
in these realms knits king and people, as to arrogate to 
my single arm the right to dispose of the birthright of 
the living, and their races unborn ; nor will I deprive the 
meanest soldier under my banner of the joy and the glory 
to fight for his native land. If William seek me he shall 
find me where war is the fiercest, where the corpses of 


HAROLD. 


303 


bis men lie the thickest on the plains, defending this 
standard or rushing on his own. And so, not monk and 
pope, but God in his wisdom, adjudge between us I” 

“ So be it,” said Mallet de Graville, solemnly, and his 
helmet reclosed over his face. “ Look to it, recreant 
knight, perjured Christian, and usurping king ! The 
bones of the dead fight against thee.” 

“And the fleshless hands of the saints marshal the hosts 
of the living,” said the monk. 

And so the messengers turned, without obeisance or 
salute, and strode silently away. 


CHAPTER VI. 

The rest of that day and the whole of the next were 
consumed by both armaments in the completion of their 
preparations. 

William was willing to delay the engagement as long 
as he could ; for he was not without hope that Harold 
might abandon his formidable position and become the 
assailing party ; and, moreover, he wished to have full 
time for his prelates and priests to inflame to the utmost, 
by their representations of William’s moderation in his 
embassy and Harold’s presumptuous guilt in rejection, 
the fiery fanaticism of all enlisted under the gonfanon of 
the Church. 

On the other hand, every delay was of advantage to 


304 


H AROLI 


Harold, in giving him leisure to render his entrenchments 
yet more effectual, and to allow time for such reinforce- 
ments as his orders had enjoined or the patriotism of the 
country might arouse ; but alas ! those reinforcements 
were scanty and insignificant ; a few stragglers in the 
immediate neighborhood arrived, but no aid came from 
London, no indignant country poured forth a swarming 
population. In fact, the very fame of Harold and the 
good fortune that had hitherto attended his arms, con- 
tributed to the stupid lethargy of the people. That he 
who had just subdued the terrible Norsemen, with the 
mighty Hardrada at their head, should succumb to those 
dainty “ Frenchmen,” as they chose to call the Normans ; 
of whom, in their insular ignorance of the continent, they 
knew but little, and whom they had seen flying in all direc- 
tions at the return of Godwin ; was a preposterous de- 
mand on the imagination. 

Nor was this all : in London there had already formed 
a cabal in favor of the Atheling. The claims of birth 
can never be so wholly set aside but what even for the 
most unworthy heir of an ancient line, some adherents 
will be found. The prudent traders thought it best not 
to engage actively on behalf of the reigning king, in his 
present combat with the Norman pretender; a large 
number of would-be statesmen thought it best for the 
country to remain for the present neutral. Grant the 
worst grant that Harold were defeated or slain ; would 
it not be wise to reserve their strength to support the 
Atheling ? William might have some personal cause of 


HAROLD. 


305 


quarrel against Harold, but be could have none against 
Edgar; he might depose the son of Godwin, but could 
he dare to depose the descendant of Cerdic, the natural 
heir of Edward ? There is reason to think that Stigand 
and a large party of the Saxon Churchmen headed .his 
faction. 

But the main causes for defection were not in adherence 
to one chief or to another. They were to be found in 
selfish inertness, in stubborn conceit, in the long peace, 
and the enervate superstition which had relaxed the sinews 
of the old Saxon manhood ; in that indifference to things 
ancient, which contempt for old names and races engen- 
dered ; that timorous spirit of calculation, which the over- 
regard for wealth had fostered ; which made men averse 
to leave trade and farm for the perils of the field and 
jeopard their possessions if the foreigner should pre- 
vail. 

Accustomed already to kings of a foreign race and 
having fared well under Canute, there were many who 
said, “ What matters who sits on the throne ? the king 
must be equally bound by our laws.” Then too was 
heard the favorite argument of all slothful minds : “ Time 
enough yet; one battle lost is not England won. Marry, 
we shall turn out fast eno’ if Harold be beaten.” 

Add to all these causes for apathy and desertion, the 
haughty jealousies of the several populations not yet 
wholly fused into one empire. The Northumbrian Danes, 
untaught even by their recent escape from the Norwegian, 
regarded with ungrateful coldness a war limited at pre- 
26 * 2t 


306 


HAROLD. 


sent to the southern coasts ; and the vast territory uuder 
Mercia was, with more excuse, equally supine ; while their 
two young earls, too new in their command to have much 
sway with their subject populations had they been in their 
capitals, had now arrived in London ; and there lingered, 
making head, doubtless, against the intrigues in favor of 
the Atheling: — so little had Harold’s marriage with 
Aldyth brought him, at the hour of his dreadest need, 
the power for which happiness had been resigned I 
Nor must we put out of account, in summing the causes 
which at this awful crisis weakened the arm of England, 
the curse of slavery amongst the theowes, which left the 
lowest part of the population wholly without interest in 
the defence of the land. Too late — too late for all but 
unavailable slaughter, the spirit of the country rose 
amidst the violated pledges, but under the iron heel of 
the Norman master ! Had that spirit put forth all its 
might for one day with Harold, where had been the cen- 
turies of bondage ! Oh, shame to the absent ! All blessed 
those present ! There was no hope for England out of 
the scanty lines of the immortal army encamped on the 
field of Hastings. There, long on .earth and vain vaunts 
of poor pride, shall be kept the roll of the robber invaders. 
In what roll are your names, holy heroes of the soil ? 
Yes, may the prayer of the virgin queen be registered on 
high ; and, assoiled of all sin, O ghosts of the glorious 
dead, may ye rise from your graves at the trump of the 
angel ; and your names, lost on earth, shine radiant and 
stainless amidst the hierarchy of heaven ! 


HAROLD. 


301 


Dull came the shades of evening, and pale through the 
rolling clouds glimmered the rising stars ; when, — all 
prepared, all arrayed, — Harold sat with Haco and Gurth, 
in his tent : and before them stood a man, half .French 
by origin, who had just returned from the Norman camp. 

“ So thou didst mingle with the men undiscovered ? ” 
said the king. 

“ No, not undiscovered, my lord. I fell in with a knight, 
whose name I have since heard as that of Mallet de Gra- 
ville, who wilily seemed to believe in what I stated, and 
who gave me meat and drink, with debonnair courtesy. 
Then said he abruptly, — ‘ Spy from Harold, thou hast 
come to see the strength of the Norman. Thou shalt 
have thy will — follow me.’ Therewith he led me, all 
startled I own, through the lines ; and, 0 king, I should 
deem them indeed countless as the sands, and resistless 
as the waves, but that, strange as it may seem to thee, I 
saw more monks than warriors.” 

“ How ! thou jestest ! ” said Gurth, surprised. 

“ No ; for thousands by thousands, they were praying 
and kneeling ; and their heads were all shaven with the 
tonsure of priests.” 

“Priests are they not,” cried Harold, with his calm 
smile, “but doughty warriors and dauntless knights.” 

Then he continued his questions to the spy ; and his 
smile vanished at the accounts, not only of the numbers 
of the force, but their vast provision of missiles, and the 
almost incredible proportion of their cavalry. 


308 


HAROLD. 


As soon as the spy had been dismissed, the king turned 
to his kinsmen. 

“ What think you ? ” he said ; “ shall we judge our- 
selves of the foe ? The night will be dark anon — our 
steeds are fleet — and not shod with iron like the Nor- 
mans ; — the sward noiseless — what think you ? ” 

“A merry conceit,” cried the blithe Leofwine. “1 
should like much to see- the boar in his den, ere he taste 
of my spear-point.” 

“And I,” said Gurth, “ do feel so restless a fever in 
my veins, that I would fain cool it by the night air. Let 
us go : I know all the ways of the country ; for hither 
have I come often with hawk and hound. But let us 
wait yet till the night is more hushed and deep.” 

The clouds had gathered over the whole surface of the 
skies, and there hung sullen ; and the mists were cold 
and grey on the lower grounds, when the four Saxon 
chiefs set forth on their secret and perilous enterprise. 

“Knights and riders took they none. 

Squires and varlets of foot not one ; 

All unarmed of weapon and weed, 

Save the shield, and spear, and the sword at need.”* 

Passing their own sentinels, they entered a wood, 
durth leading the way, and catching glimpses, through 

* “Ne meinent od els chevalier, 

Varlet a pie ne eskuier 
Ne nul d’els n’a armes portee, 

Forz sol escu, lance, et esp6e.” 

Roman de Rou. Second Part, v. 12, 126. 


harold’ 309 

the irregular path, of the blazing lights, that shone red 
over the pause of the Norman war. 

William had moved on his army to within about two 
miles from the farthest outpost of the Saxon, and con- 
tracted his lines into compact space ; the reconnoiterers 
were thus enabled, by the light of the links and watch- 
fires, to form no inaccurate notion of the formidable foe 
whom the morrow was to meet. The ground * ou which 
they stood was high, and in the deep shadow of the 
wood ; with one of the large dykes common to the Saxon 
boundaries in front, so that, even if discovered, a barrier 
not easily passed lay between them and the foe. 

In regular lines and streets extended huts of branches 
for the meaner soldiers, leading up, in serried rows but 
broad vistas, to the tents of the knights, and the gaudier 
pavilions of the counts and prelates. There, were to be 
seen the flags of Bretagne and Anjou, of Burgundy, of 
Flanders, even the ensign of France, which the volun- 
teers from that country had assumed ; and right in the 
midst of this Capital of War, the gorgeous pavilion of 
William himself, with a dyagon of gold before it, sur- 
mounting the staff, from which blazed the Papal gon- 
fanon. In every division they heard the anvils of the 
armorers, the measured tread of the sentries, the neigh 


* “ Ke d’une angarde * 1 u ils ’estuient 
Cels de 1’ost virent, ki pres furent.” 

Roman de Rou, Second Part, v. 12, 12u 


1 Angarde , eminence. 


310 


HAROLD. 


aud snort of innumerable steeds. And along the lines, 
between hut and tent, they saw tall shapes passing to and 
from the forge and smithy, bearing mail, and swords, and 
shafts. No sound of revel, no laugh of wassail was 
heard in the consecrated camp ; all was astir, but with 
the grave and earnest preparations of thoughtful men. 
As the four Saxons halted silent, each might have heard, 
through the remoter din, the other’s painful breathing. 

At length, from two tents, placed to the right and left 
of the duke’s pavilion, there came a sweet tinkling sound, 
as of deep silver bells. At that note there was an evident 
and universal commotion throughout the armament. The 
roar of the hammers ceased ; and, from every green hut 
and every grey tent, swarmed the host. Now, rows of 
living men lined the camp-streets, leaving still a free, 
though narrow passage in the midst. And, by the blaze 
of more than a thousand torches, the Saxons saw pro- 
cessions of priests, in their robes and aubes, with censer 
and rood, coming down the various avenues. As the 
priests paused, the warriors knelt ; and there was a low 
murmur as if of confession, and the sign of lifted hands, 
as if in absolution and blessing. Suddenly, from the out- 
skirts of the camp, and full in sight, emerged, from one 
of the cross lanes, Odo of Bayeux himself, in his white 
mrplice, and the cross in his right hand. Yea, even to 
,he meanest and lowliest soldiers of the armament, whe- 
ther taken from honest craft and peaceful calling, or the 
outpourings of Europe’s sinks and sewers, catamarans 
from the Alps, and cut-throats from the Rhine, — yea. 


HAROLD. 


311 


even among the vilest and the meanest, came the anointed 
brother of the great duke, the haughtiest prelate in 
Christendom, whose heart even then was fixed on the 
Pontiff’s throne — there he came, to absolve, and to shrive, 
and to bless. And the red watch-fires streamed on his 
proud face and spotless robes, as the Children of Wrath 
knelt around the Delegate of Peace. 

Harold’s hand clenched firm on the arm of Gurth, and 
his old scorn of the monk broke forth in his bitter smile 
and his muttered Vords. But Gurth’s face was sad and 
awed. 

And now, as the huts and the canvas thus gave up the 
living, they could indeed behold the enormous disparity 
of numbers with which it was their doom to contend, 
and, over those numbers, that dread intensity of zeal, 
that sublimity of fanaticism, which from one end of that 
war-town to the other, consecrated injustice, gave the 
heroism of the martyr to ambition, and blended the 
whisper of lusting avarice with the self-applauses of the 
saint ! 

Not a word said the four Saxons. But as the priestly 
procession glided to the farther quarters of the armament, 
as the soldiers in their neighborhood disappeared within 
their lodgements, and the torches moved from them to 
the more distant vistas of the camp, like lines of retreat- 
ing stars, Gurth heaved a heavy sigh, and turned his 
horse’s head from the scene. 

But scarce had they gained the centre of the wood, 
r,han there rose, as from the heart of the armament, a 


312 


HAROLD. 


swell of solemn voices. For the night had now come to 
the third watch,* in which, according to the belief of the 
age, angel and fiend were alike astir, and that church 
division of time was marked and hallowed by a monastic 
hymn. 

Inexpressibly grave, solemn, and mournful, came the 
strain through the drooping boughs, and the heavy dark- 
ness of the air ; and it continued to thrill in the ears of 
the riders till they had passed the wood, and the cheerful 
watch-fires from their own heights broke upon them to 
guide their way. They rode rapidly, but still in silence, 
past their sentries ; and, ascending the slopes, where the 
forces lay thick, how different were the sounds that smote 
them ! Round the large fires the men grouped in great 
circles, with the ale-horns and flagons passing merrily 
from hand to hand ; shouts of drink-hael and was-lnel, 
bursts of gay laughter, snatches of old songs, old as the 
days of Athelstan, — varying, where the Anglo-Danes lay, 
into the far more animated and kindling poetry of the 
Pirate North, — still spoke of the heathen time when War 
was a joy, and Valhalla was the heaven. 

“By my faith,” said Leofwine, brightening, “ these are 
sounds and sights that do a man’s heart good, after those 
doleful ditties, and the long faces of the shavelings. I 
t ow by St, Alban, that I felt my veins curdling into ice- 
bolts, when that dirge came through the woodholt. Hollo, 
Sexwolf, my tall man, lift us up that full horn of thine, 


* Midnight. 


HAROLD. 


313 


and keep thyself within the pins, Master Wassailer ; we 
must have steady feet and cool heads to-morrow.” 

Sexwolf, who, with a band of Harold’s veterans, was 
at full carousal, started up at the young earl’s greetings, 
and looked lovingly into his smiling face as he reached 
him the horn. 

“ Heed what my brother bids thee, Sexwolf,” said 
Harold, severely; “the hands that draw shafts against 
us to-morrow will not tremble with the night’s wassail.” 

“Nor ours either, my lord the king,” said Sexwolf, 
boldly ; “ our heads can bear both drink and blows, — and 
[sinking his voice into a whisper], the rumor runs that 
the odds are so against us, that I would not, for all thy 
fair brothers’ earldoms, have our men other than blithe 
to-night.” 

Harold answered not, but moved on, and coming then 
within full sight of the bold Saxons of Kent, the unmixed 
sons of the Saxon soil, and the special favorers of the 
House of Godwin, so affectionate, hearty, and cordial 
was their joyous shout of his name, that he felt his kingly 
heart leap within him. Dismounting, he entered the cir- 
cle, and with the august frankness of a noble chief, nobly 
popular, gave to all, cheering smile and animated word. 
That done, he said more gravely : “ In less than an hour, 
all wassail must cease, — my bodes will come round ; and 
then sound asleep, my brave merry men, and lusty rising 
with the lark.” 

“ As you will, as you will, dear our king,” cried Yebba, 
II.— 27 


314 


HAROLD. 


as spokesman for the soldiers “ Fear us not — life and 
death, we are yours.” 

“ Life and death yours, and freedom’s,” cried the Kent 
men. 

Coming now towards the royal tent beside the stand- 
ard, the discipline was more perfect, and the hush deco- 
rous. For round that standard were both the special 
body-guard of the king, and the volunteers from London 
and Middlesex ; men more intelligent than the bulk of 
the army, and more gravely aware, therefore, of the might 
of Norman sword. 

Harold entered his tent, and threw himself on his couch, 
in deep reverie ; his brothers and Haco watched him si- 
lently. At length, Gurth approached ; and with a rev- 
erence rare in the familiar intercourse between the two/ 
knelt at his brother’s side, and, taking Harold’s hand in 
his, looked him full in the face, his eyes moist with tears, 
and said thus: 

“ Oh, Harold ! never prayer have I asked of thee, that 
thou hast not granted : grant me this ! sorest of all, it 
may be, to grant, but most fitting of all for me to press. 
Think not, 0 beloved brother, 0 honored king, think not 
it is with slighting reverence, that I lay rough hand on 
the wound deepest at thy heart. But, however surprised 
or compelled, sure it is that thou didst make oath to Wil- 
liam, and upon the relics of saints ; avoid this battle, for 
I see that thought is now within thy soul ; that thought 
haunted thee in the words of the monk to-day ; in the 
sight of that awful camp to-night ; — avoid this battle I 


HAROLD. 


315 


and do not thyself stand in arms against the man to whom 
the oath was pledged 1 ” 

“ Gurth, Gurth ! ” exclaimed Harold, pale and writhing. 

“ We,” continued his brother, “ we at least have taken 
no oath, no perjury is charged against us; vainly the 
thunders of the Vatican are launched on our heads. Our 
war is just : we but defend our country. Leave us, then, 
to fight to-morrow ; thou retire towards London and 
raise fresh armies ; if we win, the danger is past ; if we 
lose, thou wilt avenge us. And England is not lost while 
thou survivest.” 

“Gurth, Gurth ! ” again exclaimed Harold, in a voice 
piercing in its pathos of reproach. 

“Gurth counsels well,” said Haco, abruptly; “there 
can be no doubt of the wisdom of his words. Let the 
king’s kinsmen lead the troops ; let the king himself with 
his guard hasten to London, and ravage and lay waste 
the country as he retreats by the way; * so that even if 
William beat us, all supplies will fail him ; he will be in 
a land without forage, and victory here will aid him 
nought ; for you, my liege, will have a force equal to his 
own, ere he can march to the gates of London.” 

“ Faith and troth, the young Haco speaks like a grey- 
beard ; he hath not lived in Rouen for nought,” quoth 
Leofwine. “ Hear him, my Harold, and leave us to shave 
the Normans yet more closely than the barber hath al- 
ready shorn.” 

* This counsel the Norman chronicler ascribes to Gurth, but it is 
so at variance with the character of that hero, that it is here as- 
signed to the unscrupulous intellect of Haco. 


316 


HAROLD. 


Harold turned ear and eye to each of the speakers, 
and as Leofwine closed, he smiled. 

“Ye have chid me well, kinsmen, for a thought that 
had entered into my mind ere ye spake ’’ 

Gurth interrupted the king, and said anxiously - 

“ To retreat with the whole army upon London, ana 
refuse to meet the Norman till with numbers more fairly 
matched ? ” 

“ That had been my thought,” said Harold, surprised. 

“ Such for a moment, too, was mine,” said Gurth, sad- 
ly ; “but it is too late. Such a measure, now, would have 
all the disgrace of flight, and bring none of the profits of 
retreat. The ban of the Church would get wind ; our 
priests, awed and alarmed, might wield it against us ; the 
whole population would be damped and disheartened ; 
rivals to the crown might start up ; the realm be divided. 
No, it is impossible ! ” 

“ Impossible,” said Harold, calmly. “ And if the array 
cannot retreat, of all men to stand firm, surely it is the 
captain and the king. /, Gurth, leave others to dare the 
fate from which I fly ! I give weight to the impious curse 
of the pope, by shrinking from its idle blast ! I confirm 
and ratify the oath, from which all law must absolve me, 
by forsaking the cause of the land which I purify myself 
when I guard ! /leave to others the agonj of the mar- 
tyrdom or the glory of the conquest ! Gurth, thou art 
more cruel than the Norman 1 And I, son of Sweyn, I 
ravage the land committed to my charge, and despoil the 


HAROLD. 


311 

fields which I cannot keep ! Oh, Haco, that indeed were 
to be the traitor and the recreant ! No : whatever the sin 
of my oath, never will I believe that Heaven can punish 
millions for the error of one man. Let the bones of the 
dead war against us ; in life, they were men like our- 
selves, and no saints in the calendar so holy as the free- 
men who fight for their hearths and their altars. Nor 
do I see aught to alarm us even in these grave human 
odds. We have but to keep fast these entrenchments; 
preserve, man by man, our invincible line, and the waves 
will but split on our rock : ere the sun set to-morrow, we 
shall see the tide ebb, leaving, as waifs, but the dead of 
the baffled invader.” 

“ Fare ye well, loving kinsmen ; kiss me, my brothers ; 
kiss me on the cheek, my Haco. Go now to your tents. 
Sleep in peace, and wake with the trumpet to the glad- 
ness of noble war ! ” 

Slowly the earls left the king ; slowest of all the lin- 
gering Gurth ; and when all were gone, and Harold was 
alone, he threw round a rapid, troubled glance, and then, 
hurrying to the simple imageless crucifix that stood on its 
pedestal at the farther end of the tent, he fell on his knees, 
and faltered out, while his breast heaved, and his frame 
shook with the travail of his passion, — 

“ If my sin be beyond a pardon, my oath without re- 
call, on me, on me, 0 Lord of Hosts, on me alone the 
doom 1 Not on them, not on them — not on England I ” 


27 * 


318 


HAROLD. 


CHAPTER VII. 

On the fourteenth day of October, 1066, the day of St 
Calixtus, the Norman force was drawn out in battle array 
Mass had been said ; Odo and the Bishop of Coutance 
had blessed the troops, and received their vow never 
more to eat flesh on the anniversary of that day. And 
Odo had mounted his snow-white charger, and already 
drawn up the cavalry against the coming of his brother 
the duke. The army was marshalled in three great divi- 
sions. 

Roger de Montgommeri and William Fitzosborne led 
the first; and with them were the forces from Picardy 
and the countship of Boulogne, and the fiery Franks ; 
Geoffric Martel and the German Hugues (a prince of 
fame) ; Aimeri, Lord of Th'ouars, and the sons of Alain 
Fergant, Duke of Bretagne, led the second, which com- 
prised the main bulk of the allies from Bretagne, and 
Maine, and Poitou. But both these divisions were inter- 
mixed with Normans, under their own special Norman 
chiefs. 

The third section embraced the flower of martial Eu- 
rope, the most renowned of the Norman race ; whether 
those knights bore the French titles into which their 
ancestral Scandinavian names had been transformed — 
Sires of Beaufou and Harcourt, Abbeville, and De Molun, 


HAROLD. 


319 


Montfichet, Grantmesnil, Lacie. D’Aincourt, and D’As- 
hieres ; — or whether still preserving, amidst their daintier 
titles, the old names that had scattered dismay through 
the seas of the Baltic ; Osborne and Tonstain, Mallet 
and Bulver, Brand and Bruse.* And over this division 
presided Duke William. Here was the main body of the 
matchless cavalry, to which, however, orders were given 
to support either of the other sections, as need might 
demand. And with this body were also the reserve. For 
it is curious to notice, that William’s strategy resembled 
in much that of the last great Invader of Nations — rely- 
ing first upon the effect of the charge ; secondly, upon a 
vast reserve brought to bear at the exact moment on the 
weakest point of the foe. 

All the horsemen were in complete link or net mail,f 
armed with spears and strong swords, and long, pear- 
shaped shields, with the device either of a cross or a 

* Osborne — (Asbiorn), — one of the most common of Danish and 
Norwegian names. Tonstain, Toustain, or Tostain, the same as 
Tosti, or Tostig, — Danish. (Harold’s brother is called Tostain or 
Toustain in the Norman chronicles.) Brand, a name common to 
Dane and Norwegian — Bulmer is a Norwegian name, and so is Bul- 
ver, or Bolvar — which is, indeed, so purely Scandinavian, that it is 
one of the warlike names given to Odin himself by the North-scalds. 
Bulverhithe still commemorates the landing of a Norwegian son of 
the war-god. Bruce, the ancestor of the deathless Scot, also bear? 
in that name, more illustrious than all, the proof of his Scandina- 
vian birth. 

■j- This mail appears in that age to have been sewn upon linen or 
cloth. In the later age of the crusaders, it was more artful, and 
the links supported each other, without being attached to any other 
material 


320 


HAROLD. 


dragon.* The archers, on whom William greatly relied, 
were numerous in all three of the corps, f were armed 
more lightly — helms on their heads, but with leather or 
quilted breast-plates, and “ panels,” or gaiters, for the 
lower limbs. 

But before the chiefs and captains rode to their several 
] osts, they assembled round William, whom Fitzosborne 
had called betimes, and who had not yet endured his 
heavy mail, that all men might see suspended from his 
throat certain relics chosen out of those on which Harold 
had pledged his fatal oath. Standing on an eminence in 
front of all his lines, the consecrated banner behind him, 
and Bayard, his Spanish destrier, held by his squires at 
his side, the duke conversed cheerily with his barons, 
often pointing to the relics. Then, in sight of all, he 
put on his mail, and, by the haste of the squires, the 
back-piece was presented to him first. The superstitious 
Normans recoiled as at an evil omen. 

“ Tut ! ” said the ready ‘chief ; “ not in omens and 
divinations, but in God, trust I ! Yet, good omen indeed 
is this, and one that may give heart to the most doubt- 
ful ; for it betokens that the last shall be first — the duke- 
dom a kingdom — the count a king 1 Ho there, Rou de 
Tcrni, as hereditary standard-bearer take thy right, and 
hold fast to yon holy gonfanon.” 

“Grant Merer said De Terni, “not to-day shall a 

* Bayeux tapestry. 

-j- The cross-bow is not to be seen in the Bayeux tapestry — the 
Norman bows are not long. 


HAROLD. 


32 \ 


. ^ 


standard be borne by me, for I shall have need of my 
right arm for my sword, and my left for my charger's 
rein and my trusty shield.’’ 

“ Thou sayst right, and we can ill spare such a warrior. 
Gautier Giffart, Sire de Longueville, to thee is the gon- 
fanon.” 

“Beau Sire,” answered Gautier; “par Bex, Merci 
But my head is grey and my arm weak ; and the little 
strength left me I would spend in smiting the English at 
the head of my men.” 

“Per la resplendar De,” cried William, frowning ; — 
“do ye think, my proud vavasours, to fail me in this great 
need ?” 

“Nay,” said Gautier; “but I have a great host of 
chevaliers and paid soldiers, and without the old man at 
their head will they fight as well?” 

“ Then, approach thou, Tostain le Blanc, son of Rou,” 
said William ; “ and be thine the charge of a standard 
that shall wave ere nightfall over the brows of thy — 
Icing!” A young knight, tall and strong as his Danish 
ancestor, stepped forth and laid gripe on the banner. 

Then William, now completely armed, save his helmet, 
sprang at one bound on his steed. A shout of admira- 
tion rang from the quens and knights. 

“ Saw ye ever such beau rei?”* said the Vicomte de 
Thouars. 

The shout was caught by the lines, and echoed far, 


27 * 


* Roman de Rou. 

2u 


322 


HAROLD. 


wide, and deep through the armament, as in all his 
singular majesty of brow and mien, William rode forth : 
lifting his hand, the shout hushed, and thus he spoke 
“loud as a trumpet with a silver sound — 

“Normans and soldiers, long hallowed in the lips of 
men and now hallowed by the blessing of the Church ! — 
I have not brought you over the wide sea for my cause 
alone ; — what I gain ye gain. If I take the land, you 
will share it. Fight your best, and spare not ; — no re- 
treat and no quarter ! I am not come here for my cause 
alone, but to avenge our whole nation for the felonies of 
yonder English. They butchered our kinsmen the Danes^ 
on the night of St. Brice ; they murdered Alfred, the 
brother of their last king, and decimated the Normans 
who were with him. Yonder they stand, — malefactors 
that await their doom ! and ye the doomsmen ? Never, 
even in a good cause, were yon English illustrious for 
warlike temper and martial glory.* Remember how 
easily the Danes subdued them ! Are ye less than Danes, 
or I than Canute ? By victory ye obtain vengeance, 
glory, honors, lands, spoil, — ay, spoil beyond your 
wildest dreams. By defeat, — yea even but by loss of 
ground, ye are given up to the sword ! Escape there is 
not, for the ships are useless. Before you the foe, behind 
you the ocean ! Normans, remember the feats of your 
countrymen in Sicily 1 Behold a Sicily more rich ! Lord- 
ships and lands to the living, — glory and salvation to 


* William of Poitiers. 


HAROLD. 


323 


those who die under the gonfanon of the Church ! On 
to the cry of the Norman warrior; the cry before which 
have fled so often the prowest Paladins of Burgundy and 
France — 1 Notre Dame et Dex aide ! 1 ” * 

Meanwhile, no less vigilant, and in his own strategy 
no less skilful, Harold had marshalled his men. He 
formed two divisions ; those in front of the entrench- 
ments, those within it. At the first the men of Kent, as 
from time immemorial, claimed the honor of the van, 
under “the Pale Charger,” — famous banner of Hengist. 
This force was drawn up in the form of the Anglo-Danish 
wedge ; the foremost lines in the triangle all in heavy 
mail, armed with their great axes and covered by their 
immense shields. Behind these lines, in the interior of 
the wedge, were the archers, protected by the front rows 
of the heavy-armed ; while the few horsemen — few indeed 
compared with the Norman cavalry — were artfully dis- 
posed where they could best harass and distract the 
formidable chivalry with which they were instructed to 
skirmish and not peril actual encounter. Other bodies 
of the light-armed ; slingers, javelin throwers, and archers, 
were planted in spots carefully selected, according as they 
were protected by trees, brush-wood, and dykes. The 
Northumbrians (that is, all the warlike population north 
the Humber, including Yorkshire, Westmoreland, Cum- 
berland, &c.) were, for their present shame and future 
ruin, absent from the field, save, indeed, a few who had 
joined Harold in his march to London. But there were 


* Dieu nous aide 


324 


H A ROLD. 


the mixed races of Hertfordshire and Essex, with the 
pure Saxons of Sussex and Surrey, and a large body of 
the sturdy Anglo-Danes from Lincolnshire, Ely, and 
Norfolk. Men, too, there were, half of old British blood, 
from Dorset, Somerset, and Gloucester. 

And all were marshalled according to those touching 
and pathetic tactics which speak of a nation more accus- 
tomed to defend than to aggrieve. To that field the 
head of each family led his sons and kinsfolk ; every ten 
families (or tything) were united under their own chosen 
captain. Every ten of these tythings had again some 
loftier chief, dear to the populace in peace ; and so on 
the holy circle spread from household, hamlet, town, — 
till, all combined, as one country under one earl, the 
warriors fought under the eyes of their own kinsfolk, 
friends, neighbors, chosen chiefs ! What wonder that 
they were brave ? 

The second division comprised Harold’s house-carles, 
or body-guard, — the veterans especially attached to his 
family, — the companions of his successful wars, — a select 
band of the martial East-Anglians, — the soldiers sup- 
plied by London and Middlesex, and who, both in arms, 
discipline, martial temper, and athletic habits, ranked 
high among the most stalwart of the troops, mixed as 
their descent was, from the warlike Dane and the sturdy 
Saxon. In this division, too, was comprised the reserve. 
And it was all encompassed by the palisades and breast- 
works, to which were but three sorties whence the de- 
fenders might sally, or through which at need the van 


HAROLD. 


325 


guard might secure a retreat. All the heavy-armt! had 
mail and shields similar to the Normans, though ume 
what less heavy ; the light-armed had some tun!.3s of 
quilted linen, some of hide ; helmets of the last material, 
spears, javelins, swords, and clubs. But the main arm 
of the host was in the great shield and the great axe 
wielded by men larger in stature and stronger of muscle 
than the majority of the Normans, whose physical race 
had deteriorated partly by intermarriage with the 
delicate Frank, partly by the haughty disdain of foot- 
exercise. 

Mounting a swift and light steed, intended n c,c for 
encounter (for it was the custom of English kings to 
fight on foot, in token that where they fought there was 
no retreat), but to bear the rider rapidly from line to 
line,* King Harold rode to the front of the van guard ; 
— his brothers by his side. His head, like his great foe’s, 
was bare, nor could there be a more striking contrast 
than that of the broad unwrinkled brow of the Saxon, 
with his fair locks, the sign of royalty and freedom, parted 
and falling over the collar of mail, the clear and stead- 
fast eye of blue, the cheek somewhat hollowed by kingly 
cares, but flushed now with manly pride — the form stal- 
wart and erect, but spare in its graceful symmetry, and 
void of all that theatric pomp of bearing which was 
assumed by William — no greater contrast could there be 

* Thus, when at the battle of Barnet., Earl Warwick, the king- 
maker, slew his horse and fought on foot, he followed the old 
traditional custom of Saxon chiefs. 

II. — 28 


326 


HAROLD. 


than that which the simple, earnest hero-king presented 
to the brow farrowed with harsh ire and politic wile, the 
shaven hair of monastic affectation, the dark, sparkling 
tiger eye, and the vast proportions that awed the gaze 
in the port and form of the imperious Norman. Deep 
and loud and hearty as the shout with w r hich his arma- 
ments had welcomed William, was that which now greeted 
the king of the English host : and clear and full and prac- 
tised in the storm of popular assemblies, went his voice 
down the listening lines. 

“ This day, 0 friends and Englishmen, sons of our 
common land— this day ye fight for liberty. The count 
of the Normans hath, I know, a mighty array ; I dis- 
guise not its strength. That army he hath collected 
together, by promising to each man a share in the spoils 
of England. Already, in his court and his camp, he 
hath parcelled out the lands of this kingdom ; and fierce 
are the robbers who fight for the hope of plunder ! But 
he cannot offer to his greatest chief boons nobler than 
those I offer to my meanest freeman — liberty, and right, 
and law, in the soil of his fathers ! Ye have heard of 
the miseries endured in the old time under the Dane, but 
they were slight indeed to those which ye may expect 
from the Norman. The Dane was kindred to us in lan- 
guage and in law, and who now can tell Saxon from 
Dane ? But yon men would rule ye in a language ye 
know not, by a law that claims the crown as the right 
of the sword, and divides the land among the hirelings 
of an army. We baptized the Dane, and the Church 


HAROLD. 


321 


tamed his fierce soul into peace ; but yon men make the 
Church itself their ally, and march to carnage under the 
banner profaned to the foulest of human wrongs ! Out- 
scourings of all nations, they come against you ! Ye 
fight as brothers under the eyes of your fathers and 
chosen chiefs ; ye fight for the women ye would save from 
the ravisher ; ye fight for the children ye would guard 
from eternal bondage ; ye fight for the altars which yon 
banner now darkens ! Foreign priest is a tyrant as ruth- 
less and stern as ye shall find foreign baron and king ! 
Let no man dream of retreat; every inch of ground that 
ye yield is the soil of your native land. For me, on this 
field I peril all. Think that mine eye is upon you wher- 
ever ye are. If a line waver or shrink, ye shall hear in 
the midst the voice of your king. Hold fast to your 
ranks, remember, such amongst you as fougbt with me 
against Hardrada, — remember that it was not till the 
Norsemen lost, by rash sallies, their serried array, that 
our arms prevailed against them. Be warned by their 
fatal error, break not the form of the battle ; and I tell 
you on the faith of a soldier who never yet hath left field 
without victory, — that ye cannot be beaten. While I 
speak, the winds swell the sails of the Norse ships, bear- 
ing home the corpse of Hardrada. Accomplish this day 
the last triumph of England ; add to these hills a new 
mount of the conquered dead ! And when, in far times 
and strange lands, scald and scop shall praise the brave 
man for some valiant deed wrought in some holy cause, 
tney shall say, ‘ He was brave as those who fought by the 


328 


HAROLD. 


side of Harold, ani swept from the sward of England the 
hosts of the haughty Norman.’ ” 

Scarcely had the rapturous hurrahs of the Saxons 
closed on this speech, when full in sight, north-west cf 
Hastings, came the first division of the invader. 

Harold remained gazing at them, and not seeing the 
other sections in movement, said to Gurth, “ If these are 
all that they venture out, the day is ours.” 

“ Look yonder ! ” said the sombre Haco, and he pointed 
to the long array that now gleamed from the wood through 
which the Saxon kinsmen had passed the night before ; 
and scarcely were these cohorts in view, than lo ! from a 
third quarter advanced the glittering knighthood under 
the duke. All three divisions came on in simultaneous 
assault, two on either wing of the Saxon vanguard, the 
third (the Norman) towards the entrenchments. 

In the midst of the duke’s cohort was the sacred gon- 
fanon, and in front of it and of the whole line, rode a 
strange warrior of gigantic height. And as he rode, the 
warrior sang, — 

“ Chanting loud the lusty strain 
Of Roland and of Charlemain, 

And the dead, who, deathless all, 

Fell at famous Roucesval.” * 


* Devant li Dus alout cantant 
De Karlemaine e de Rollant, 

Ed ’Olever e des Vassalls 
Ki morurent en Ronchevals. 

Roman de Ron , Part ii. 1 . 13 , 151 . 
Much research has been made by French antiquaries, to disoovei 
the old Chant de Roland, but in vain. 


HAROLD. 


329 

And the knights, no longer singing hymn and litany, 
swelled, hoarse through their helmets, the martial chorus. 
This warrior, in front of the duke and the horsemen, 
seemed beside himself with the joy of battle. As he rode, 
and as he chanted, he threw up his sword in the air like 
a gleeman, catching it nimbly as it fell,* and flourishing 
it wildly, till, as if unable to restrain his fierce exhilara- 
tion, he fairly put spurs to his horse, and, dashing for- 
ward to the very front of a detachment of. Saxon riders, 
shouted, — 

“A Taillefer ! a Taillefer ! ” and by voice and gesture 
challenged forth some one to single combat. 

A fiery young thegn who knew the Romance tongue, 
started forth and crossed swords with the poet ; but by 
what seemed rather a juggler’s sleight of hand than a 
knight’s fair fence, Taillefer, agaiu throwing up and catch- 
ing his sword with incredible rapidity, shore the unhappy 
Saxon from the helm to the chine, and riding over his 
corpse, shouting and laughing, he again renewed his chal- 
lenge. A second rode forth and shared the same fate. 
The rest of the English horsemen stared at each other 
aghast ; the shouting, singing, juggling giant seemed to 
them not knight, but demon ; and that single incident 
preliminary to all other battle, in sight of the whole field, 
might have sufficed to damp the ardor of the English, 
had not Leofwine, who had been despatched by the king 
with a message to the entrenchments, come in front of the 


28 * 


* W. Pict. Chron. de Nor 


330 


IUROLB. 


detachment ; and his gay spirit, roused and stung by th* 
insolence of the Norman, and the evident dismay of the 
Saxon riders, without thought of his graver duties, he 
spurred his light half-mailed steed to the Norman giant ; 
and, not even drawing his sword, but with his spear raised 
over his head, and his form covered by his shield, he cried 
in Romance tongue, “ Go and chant to the foul fiend, O 
croaking minstrel ! ” Taillefer rushed forward, his sword 
shivered on the Saxon shield, and in the same moment he 
fell a corpse under the hoofs of his steed, transfixed by 
the Saxon spear. 

A cry of woe, in which even William (who proud of 
his poet’s achievements, had pressed to the foremost line 
to see this new encounter) joined his deep voice, wailed 
through the Norman ranks; while Leofwine rode de- 
liberately towards them, halted a moment, and then flung 
his spear into the midst with so deadly an aim, that a 
young knight, within two of William, reeled on his sad- 
dle, groaned, and fell. 

“ How like ye, 0 Normans, the Saxon gleemen ?” said 
Leofwine, as he turned slowly, regained the detachment, 
and bade them heed carefully the orders they had received, 
viz., to avoid the direct charge of the Norman horse, but 
to take every occasion to harass and divert the stragglers ; 
and then blithely singing a Saxon stave, as if inspired by 
Norman minstrelsy, he rode into the entrenchments. 


HAROLD. 


331 


CHAPTER YIII. 

Tiie two brethren of Waltham, Osgood and Ailred, 
had arrived a little after daybreak at the spot in which, 
about half a mile to the rear of Harold’s palisades, the 
beasts of burden that had borne the heavy arms, missiles, 
luggage, and forage of the Saxon march, were placed in 
and about the fenced yards of a farm. And many human 
beings, of both sexes and various ranks, were there as- 
sembled, some in breathless expectation, some in careless 
talk, some in fervent prayer. 

The master of the farm, his sons, and the able-bodied 
ceorls in his employ, had joined the forces of the king, 
under Gurth, as earl of the county.* But many aged 
theowes, past military service, and young children, grouped 
around : the first, stolid and indifferent — the last, prat- 
tling, curious, lively, gay. There, too, were the wives of 
some of the soldiers, who, as common in Saxon expe- 
ditions, had followed their husbands to the field ; and 
there, too, were the ladies of many a Hlaford in the neigh- 
boring district, who, no less true to their mates than the 

* For, as Sir F. Palgrave shrewdly conjectures, upon the dis- 
memberment of the vast earldom of Wessex, on Harold’s accession 
to the throne, that portion of it comprising Sussex (the old govern- 
ment of his grandfather Wolnoth), seems to have been assigned to 
Gurth. 


832 


HAROLD. 


wives of humbler men, were drawn by their English hearts 
to the fatal spot. A small wooden chapel, half-decayed, 
stood a little behind, with its doors wide open, a sanc- 
tuary in case of need ; and the interior was thronged 
with kneeling suppliants. 

The two monks joined, with pious gladness, some of 
their sacred calling, who were leaning over the low wall, 
and straining their eyes towards the bristling field. A 
little apart from them, and from all, stood a female ; the 
hood drawn over her face, silent in her unknown thoughts. 

By and by, as the march of the Norman multitude 
sounded hollow, and the trumps, and the fifes, and the 
shouts rolled on through the air, in many a stormy peal, 
— the two abbots in the Saxon camp, with their attend- 
ant monks, came riding towards the farm from the en- 
trenchments. 

The groups gathered round these new comers in haste 
and eagerness. 

“The battle hath begun, ” said the abbot of Hide, 
gravely. “ Pray God for England, for never was its 
people in peril so great from man.” 

The female started and shuddered at those words. 

“And the king, the king,” she cried, in a sudden and 
thrilling voice; “where is he? — the king?” 

“ Daughter,” said the abbot, “ the king’s post is by his 
standard ; but I left him in the van of his troops. Where 
he may be now, I know not. Wherever the foe presses 
sorest.” 

Then dismounting, the abbots entered the yard, to be 


HAROLD. 


333 


accosted instantly by all the wives, who deemed, poor 
souls, that the holy men must, throughout all the field, 
have seen their lords ; for each felt as if God’s world hung 
but on the single life in which each pale trembler lived. 

With all their faults of ignorance and superstition, the 
Saxon churchmen loved their flocks ; and the good abbots 
gave what comfort was in their power, and then passed 
into the chapel, where all who could find room followed 
them. 

The war now raged. 

The two divisions of the invading army that included 
the auxiliaries, had sought in vain to surround the Eng- 
lish vanguard, and take it in the rear : that noble pha- 
lanx had no rear. Deepest and strongest at the base of 
the triangle, everywhere a front opposed the foe ; shields 
formed a rampart against the dart — spears a palisade 
against the horse. While that vanguard maintained its 
ground, William could not pierce to the entrenchments, 
the strength of which, however, he was enabled to per- 
ceive. He now changed his tactics, joined his knighthood 
to the other sections, threw his hosts rapidly into many 
wings, and leaving broad spaces between his archers — 
who continued their fiery hail — ordered his heavy-armed 
foot to advance on all sides upon the wedge, and break 
its ranks for the awaiting charge of his horse. 

Harold, still in the centre of the vanguard, amidst the 
men of Kent, continued to animate them all with voice 
and hand ; and, as the Hormans now closed in, he flung 


334 


HAROLD. 


himself from his steed, and strode on foot, with his mighty 
battle-axe, to the spot where the rush was dreadest. 

Now came the shock — the fight hand to hand : spear 
and lance were thrown aside, axe and sword rose and 
shore. But before the close-serried lines of the English, 
with their physical strength, and veteran practice in their 
own special arm, the Norman foot were mowed as by the 
scythe. In vain, in the intervals, thundered the repeated 
charges of the fiery knights; in vain, — throughout all, 
came the shaft and the bolt. 

Animated by the presenee of their king, fighting 
amongst them as a simple soldier, but with his eye ever 
quick to foresee, his voice ever prompt to warn, the men 
of Kent swerved not a foot from their indomitable ranks. 
The Norman infantry wavered and gave way; on, step 
by step, still unbroken in array, pressed the English. 
And their cry, “Out! out! Holy Crosse!” rose high 
above the flagging sound of “ Ha Itou ! Ha Rou ! — ■ 
Notre Dame!” 

“Per la resplendar De” cried William. “Our sol- 
diers are but women in the garb of Normans. Ho, spears 
to the rescue ! With me to the charge, Sires D’Aumale 
and De Littain — with me, gallant Bruse and De Mor* 
tain ; with me, De Graville and Grantraesnil — Dex aide ! 
Notre Dame.” And heading his prowest knights, Wib 
liam came, as a thunderbolt, on the bills and shields. 
Harold, who scarce a minute before had been in a remo- 
ter rank, was already at the brunt of that charge. At 
his word down knelt the foremost line, leaving nought 


HAROLD. 


335 


but their shields and their spear-points against the horse. 
While behind them, the axe in both hands, bent forward 
the soldiery in the second rank, to smite and to crush. 
And, from the core of the wedge, poured the shafts of 
the archers. Down rolled in the dust half the charge of 
those knights. Bruse reeled on his saddle ; the dread 
right-hand of D’Aumale fell lopped by the axe ; De Gra- 
ville, hurled from his horse, rolled at the feet of Harold ; 
and William, borne by his great steed and his colossal 
strength into the third rank — there dealt, right and left, 
the fierce strokes of his iron club, till he felt his horse 
sinking under him — and had scarcely time to back from 
the foe — scarcely time to get beyond reach of their wea- 
pons, ere the Spanish destrier, frightfully gashed through 
its strong mail, fell dead on the plain. His knights 
swept round him. Twenty barons leapt from selle to 
yield him their chargers. He chose the one nearest to 
hand, sprang to foot and to stirrup, and rode back to his 
lines Meanwhile De Graville’s casque, its strings broken 
by the shock, had fallen off, and as Harold was about to 
strike, he recognized his guest. 

Holding up his hand to keep off the press of his men, 
the generous king said briefly — “ Rise and retreat ! — no 
time on this field for captor and captive. He whom thou 
hast called recreant knight, has been Saxon host. Thou 
hast fought by his side, thou shalt not die by his hand ! 
— Go.” 

Not a word spoke De Graville ; but his dark eye dwel* 
one minute with mingled pity and reverence on the king; 


336 


HAROLD. 


then rising, he turned awav ; and slowly, as if he dis- 
dained to fly, strode back over the corpses of his coun- 
trymen. 

“ Stay, all hands ! ” cried the king to his archers ; “yon 
man hath tasted our salt, and done us good service of 
old. He hath paid his weregeld.” 

Not a shaft was discharged. 

Meanwhile, the Norman infantry, who had been before 
recoiling, no sooner saw their duke (whom they recog- 
nized by his steed and equipment) fall on the ground, 
than, setting up a shout — “The duke is dead!” they 
fairly turned round, and fled fast in disorder. 

The fortune of the day was now well-nigh turned in 
favor of the Saxons ; and the confusion of the Normans, 
as the cry of “ The duke is dead ! ” reached, and circled 
round, the host, would have been irrecoverable, had Ha- 
rold possessed a cavalry fit to press the advantage gained, 
or had not William himself rushed into the midst of the 
fugitives, throwing his helmet back on his neck, showing 
his face, all animated with fierce valor and disdainful 
wrath, while he cried aloud — 

“I live, ye varlets ! Behold the face of a chief who 
never yet forgave coward ! Ay, tremble more at me than 
at yon English, doomed and accursed as they be ! Ye 
Normans, ye ! I blush for you ! ” and striking the fore- 
most in the retreat with the flat of his sword, chiding, 
stimulating, threatening, promising in a breath, he suc- 
ceeded in staying the flight, re-forming the lines, and dis- 
pelling the general panic. Then, as he joined his own 


HAROLD. 


m 


chosen knights, and surveyed the field, he beheld an open- 
ing which the advanced position of the Saxon vanguard 
had left, and by which his knights might gain the en- 
trenchments. He mused a moment, his face still bare, 
and brightening as he mused. Looking round him, he 
saw Mallet do Graville, who had remounted, and said 
shortly, 

“ Pardex , dear knight, we thought you already with 
St. Michael ! joy, that you live yet to be an English earl. 
Look you, ride to Fitzosborne with the signal-word, l Li 
Hardiz passent avantP Off, and quick.” 

De Graville bowed, and darted across the plain. 

“Now, my quens and chevaliers,” said William, gaily, 
as he closed his helmet, and took* from his squire another 
spear; “now, I shall give ye the day’s great pastime. 
Pass the word, Sire de Tancarville, to every horseman — 
‘Charge! — to the Standard!’” 

The word passed, the steeds bounded, and the whole 
force of William’s knighthood, scouring the plain to the 
rear of the Saxon vanguard, made for the entrenchments. 

At that sight, Harold, divining the object, and seeing 
this new and more urgent demand on his presence, halted 
the battalions over which he had presided, and, yielding 
the command to Leofwine, once more briefly but strenu- 
ously enjoined the troops to heed well their leaders, and 
on no account to break the wedge, in the form of which 
lay their whole strength, both against the cavalry and the 
greater number of the foe. Then mounting his horse, 
and attended only by Haco, he spurred across the plain, 
II. — 29 2v 


338 


HAROLD. 


in the opposite direction to that taken by the Normans. 
In doing so, he was forced to make a considerable circuit 
towards the rear of the entrenchment, and the farm, with 
its watchful groups, came in sight. He distinguished the 
garbs of the women, and Haco said to him — 

“There wait the wives, to welcome the living victors,” 
“ Or search their lords among the dead ! ” answered 
Harold. “ Who, Haco, if we fall, will search for us ?” 

As the word left his lips, he saw, under a lonely thorn- 
tree, and scarce out of bow-shot from the entrenchments, 
a woman seated. The king looked hard at the bended, 
hooded form. 

“Poor wretch!” he murmured, “her heart is in the 
battle ! ” And he shouted aloud, “ Farther off ! farther 
off! — the war rushes hitherward 1 ” 

At the sound of that voice the woman rose, stretched 
her arms, and sprang forward. But the Saxon chiefs 
had already turned their faces towards the neighboring 
ingress into the ramparts, and beheld not her movement, 
while the tramp of rushing chargers, the shout and the 
roar of clashing war, drowned the wail of her feeble cry. 

“I have heard him again, again!” murmured the 
woman, “ God be praised ! ” and she reseated herself 
quietly under the lonely thorn. 

As Harold and Haco sprang to their feet within the 

entrenchments, the shout of “the king — the king! 

Holy Crosse ! ” came in time to rally the force at the 
farther end, now undergoing the full storm of the Nor 
mau chivalry. 


HAROLD. 


339 


The willow ramparts were already rent and hewed 
beneath the hoofs of horses and the clash of swords ; and 
the sharp points on the frontals of the Norman destriers 
were already gleaming within the entrenchments, when 
Harold arrived at the brunt of action. The tide was 
then turned ; not one of those rash riders left the en- 
trenchments they had gained; steel and horse alike went 
down beneath the ponderous battle-axes ; and William, 
again foiled and baffled, drew off his cavalry with the 
reluctant conviction that those breast-works, so manned, 
were not to be won by horse. Slowly the knights re 
treated down the slope of the hillock, and the English, 
animated by that sight, would have left their strong-hold 
to pursue, but for the warning cry of Harold. The 
interval in the strife thus gained was promptly and vigor- 
ously employed in repairing the palisades. And this 
done, Harold, turning to Haco and the thegns round him, 
said, joyously — 

“ By Heaven’s help we shall yet win this day. And 
know you not that it is my fortunate day — the day on 
which, hitherto, all hath prospered with me in peace and 
in war — the day of my birth?” 

“Of your birth!” echoed Haco, in surprise. 

“Ay — did you not know it?” 

“ Nay ! — strange ! — it is also the birth-day of Duke 
William ! What would astrologers say to the meeting 
of such stars ? ” * 


* Harold’s birth-day was certainly the 14th of October. Accord, 
ing to Mr. Roscoe, in his life of “William the Conqueror,” William 
was born also on the 14th of October. 


340 


HAROLD. 


Harold’s cheek paled, but his helmet concealed the 
paleness ; his arm drooped. The strange dream of his 
youth again came distinct before him, as it had come in 
the hall of the Norman at the sight of the ghastly relics 
— again he saw the shadowy hand from the cloud — 
again heard the voice murmuring — “ Lo ! the star that 
shone on the birth of the victor ; ” again he heard the 
words of Hilda interpreting the dream — again the chant 
which the dead or the fiend had poured from the rigid 
lips of the Yala. It boomed on his ear: hollow as a 
death-bell it knelled through the roar of battle — 

“ Never 

Crown and brow shall Force dissever, 

Till the dead men, unforgiving, 

Loose the war-steeds on the living; 

Till a sun whose race is ending, 

Sees the rival stars contending, 

Where the dead men, unforgiving, 

Wheel their war-steeds round the living!” 

Faded the vision, and died the chant, as a breath that 
dims, and vanishes from, the mirror of steel. The breath 
was gone — the firm steel was bright once more; and 
suddenly the king was recalled to the sense of the present 
hour by shouts and cries, in which the yell of Norman 
triumph predominated, at the farther end of the field. 
The signal-words to Fitzosborne had conveyed to that 
chief the order for the mock charge on the Saxon van- 
guard, to be followed by the feigned flight; and so art- 
fully had this stratagem been practised, that despite all 
the solemn orders of Harold, despite even the warning 


HAROLD. 


341 


cry of Leofwine who, rash and gay-hearted though he 
was, had yet a captain’s skill — the bold English, their 
blood heated by long contest and seeming victory, could 
not resist pursuit. They rushed forward impetuously, 
breaking the order of their hitherto indomitable phalanx, 
and the more eagerly because the Normans had unwit- 
tingly taken their way towards a part of the ground con- 
cealing dykes and ditches, into which the English trusted 
to precipitate the foe. It was as William’s knights re- 
treated from the breast-works that this fatal error was 
committed ; and pointing towards the disordered Saxons 
with a wild laugh of revengeful joy, William set spurs to 
his horse, and, followed by all his chivalry, joined the 
cavalry of Poitou and Boulogne in their swoop upon the 
scattered array. Already the Norman infantry had turned 
round — already the horses, that lay in ambush amongst 
the brushwood near the dykes, had thundered forth. The 
whole of the late impregnable vanguard was broken up 
— divided corps from corps — hemmed in; horse after 
horse charging to the rear, to the front, to the flank, to 
the right, to the left. 

Gurth, with the men of Surrey and Sussex had alone 
kept their ground, but they were now compelled to ad- 
vance to the aid of their scattered comrades ; and coming 
up in close order, they not only awhile stayed the 
slaughter, but again half turned the day. Knowing the 
country thoroughly, Gurth lured the foe into the ditches 
concealed within a hundred yards of their own ambush, 
and there the havoc of the foreigners was so great, that 
29 * 


342 


HAROLD. 


the hollows are said to have been literally made level with 
the plain by their corpses. Yet this combat, however 
fierce, and however skill might seek to repair the former 
error, could not be long maintained against such disparity 
of numbers. And meanwhile the whole of the division 
under Geoffroi Martel, and his co-captains, had by a 
fresh order of William’s, occupied the space between the 
entrenchments and the more distant engagement ; thus 
when Harold looked up, he saw the foot of the hillocks 
so lined with steel, as to render it hopeless that he him- 
self could win to the aid of his vanguard. He set his 
teeth firmly, looked on, and only by gesture and smothered 
exclamations showed his emotions of hope and fear. At 
length he cried, — 

“ Gallant Gurth ! brave Leofwine, look to their pen- 
nons ; right, right; well fought, sturdy Yebba ! Ha! 
they are moving this way. The wedge cleaves on — it 
cuts its path through the heart of the foe.’’ And in- 
deed, the chiefs now drawing off the shattered remains 
of their countrymen, still disunited, but still each section 
shaping itself wedge-like, — on came the English, with 
their shields over their head, through the tempest of 
missiles, against the rush of the steeds, here and theie, 
through the plains, up the slopes, towards the entrench- 
ment, in the teeth of the formidable array of Martel, and 
harassed by hosts that seemed numberless. The king 
could restrain himself no longer. He selected five hun 
dred of his bravest and most practised veterans, yet com 
paratively fresh, and commanding the rest to stay firm. 


HAROLD. 


343 


descended the hills, and charged unexpectedly into the 
rear of the mingled Normans and Britons. 

This sortie, well timed, though desperate, served to 
cover and favor the retreat of the straggling Saxons 
Many, indeed, were cut off ; but Gurth, Leofwine, and 
Yebba hewed the way for their followers to the side of 
Harold, and entered the entrenchments, close followed 
by the nearer foe, who were again repulsed amidst the 
shouts of the English. 

“ But, alas ! small indeed the band thus saved, aud 
hopeless the thought that the small detachments of 
English still surviving and scattered over the plain, would 
ever win to their aid. 

Yet in those scattered remnants were, perhaps, almost 
the only men who, availing themselves of their acquaint- 
ance with the country, and despairing of victory, escaped 
by flight from the field of Sanguelac. Nevertheless,, 
within the entrenchments not a man had lost heart ; the 
day was already far advanced, no impression had been 
yet made on the outworks, the position seemed as im- 
pregnable as a fortress of stone ; and, truth to say, even 
the bravest Normans were disheartened, when they looked 
to that eminence which had foiled the charge of William 
himself. The duke, in the recent melee , had received 
more than one wound, his third horse that day had been 
slain under him. The slaughter among the knights arjd 
nobles had been immense, for they had exposed their per- 
sons with the most desperate valor. And William, after 
surveying'the rout of nearly one-half of the English army, 


344 


HAROLD. 


neard everywhere, to his wrath and his shame, murmurs 
of discontent and dismay at the prospect of scaling the 
heights, in which the gallant remnant had found their 
refuge. At this critical juncture, Odo of Bayeux, who 
had hitherto remained in the rear,* with the crowds of 
monks that accompanied the armament, rode into the full 
Geld, where all the hosts were re-forming their lines. He 
was in complete mail ; but a white surplice was drawn 
over the steel, his head was bare, and in his right hand 
he bore the crozier. A formidable club swung by a 
leathern noose from his wrist, to be used only for self- 
defence : the canons forbade the priest to strike merely 
in assault. 

Behind the milk-white steed of Odo came the whole 
body of reserve, fresh and unbreathed, free from the terrors 
of their comrades, and stung into proud wrath at the 
delay of the Norman conquest. 

“How now — how now ! ” cried the prelate; “do ye 
flag ? do ye falter when the sheaves are down, and ye 
have but to gather up the harvest ? How now, sons of 
the Church ! warriors of the Cross ! avengers of the 
Saints ! Desert your count, if ye please ; but shrink not 
back from a Lord mightier than man. Lo, I come forth 
to ride side by side with my brother, bare-headed, the 
crozier in my hand. He who fails his liege is but a 
co-ward — he who fails the Church is apostate!” 

The Gerce shout of the reserve closed this harangue, 


* William Piet. 


HAROLD. 


345 


and the words of the prelate, as well as the physical aid 
he brought to back them, renerved the army. And now 
the whole of William’s mighty host covering the field till 
its lines seemed to blend with the grey horizon, came on 
serried, steadied, orderly — to all sides of the entrench- 
ment. Aware of the inutility of his horse till the breast- 
works were cleared, William placed in the van all his 
heavy-armed foot, spearsmen, and archers, to open the 
way through the palisades, the sorties from which had 
now been carefully closed. 

As they came up the hills, Harold turned to Haco and 
said, “ Where is thy battle-axe ? ” 

“Harold,” answered Haco, with more than his usual 
tone of sombre sadness, “I desire now to be thy shield- 
bearer, for thou must use thine axe with both hands while 
the day lasts and thy shield is useless. Wherefore thou 
strike and I will shield thee.” 

" Thou lovest me then, son of Sweyn ; I have some- 
times doubted it.” 

“ I love thee as the best part of my life, and with thy 
life ceases mine : it is my heart that my shield guards 
when it covers the breast of Harold.” 

“I would bid thee live, poor youth,” whispered Ha- 
rold ; “ but what were life if this day were lost? Happy, 
then, will be those who die I” 

Scarce had the words left his lips ere he sprang to the 
breast-w'orks, and with a sudden sweep of his axe down 
dropped a helm that peered above them. But helm after 
helm succeeds. Now they come on, swarm upon swarm, 
29 * 


34(5 


HAROLD. 


as wolves on a traveller, as bears round a bark. Count- 
less, amidst their carnage, on they come ! The arrows 
of the Norman blacken the air: with deadly precision to 
each arm, each limb, each front exposed above the bul- 
warks — whirrs the shaft. They clamber the palisades, 
the foremost fall dead under the Saxon axe ; now thou- 
sands rush on ; vain is the might of Harold, vain had 
been a Harold’s might in every Saxon there ! The first 
row of breast- works is forced — it is trampled, hewed, 
crushed down, cumbered with the dead. “ Ha Rou ! Ha 
Rou ! Notre Dame ! Notre Dame ! ” sounds joyous and 
shrill, the chargers snort and leap, and charge into the 
circle. High wheels in air the great mace of William ; 
bright by the slaughterers flashes the crozier of the Church. 

“ On, Normans ! — earldom and land 1” cries the duke. 

“ On, sons of the Church ! Salvation and heaven ! ” 
shouts the voice of Odo. 

The first breast-work down — the Saxons yielding inch 
by inch, foot by foot, are pressed, crushed back, into the 
second enclosure. The same rush, and swarm, and fight, 
and cry, and roar: — the second enclosure gives way. 
And now in the centre of the third — lo, before the eyes 
of the Normans, towers proudly aloft and shines in the 
rays of the westering sun, broidered with gold, and blaz- 
ing with mystic gems, the standard of England’s king ! 
And there are gathered the reserve of the English host ; 
there, the heroes who had never yet known defeat un- 

wearied they by the battle — vigorous, high-hearted still . 
and round them the breast-works were thicker, and 


HAROLD. 


347 


stronger, and higher, and fastened by chains to pillars 
of wood and staves of iron, with the wagons and carts 
of the baggage, and piled logs of timber — barricades at 
which even William paused aghast, and Odo stifled ar. 
exclamation that became not a priestly lip. 

Before that standard in the front of the men, stood 
Gurth, and Leofwine, and Haco, and Harold, the last 
leaning for rest upon his axe, for he was sorely wounded 
in many places, and the blood oozed through the links of 
his mail. 

Live, Harold ; live yet, and Saxon England shall not 
die ! 

The English archers had at no time been numerous ; 
most of them had served with the vanguard, and the 
shafts of those within the ramparts were spent ; so that 
the foe had time to pause and to breathe. The Norman 
arrows meanwhile flew fast and thick, but William noted 
to his grief that they struck against the tall breast-works 
and barricades, and so failed in the slaughter they should 
inflict. 

He mused a moment and sent one of his knights to call 
to him three of the chiefs of the archers. They were soon 
at the side of his destrier. 

“ See ye not, maladroits ,” said the duke, “that your 
shafts and bolts fall harmless on those osier walls ? Shoot 
in the air; let the arrow fall perpendicular on those 
within — fall as the vengeance of the saints falls — direct 
from neaven ! Give me thy oow, archer, — thus.” He 
drew the bow as he sate on his steed, the arrow flashed 


348 


HAROLD. 


np and descended in the heart of the reserve, within a 
few feet of the standard. 

“So; that standard be your mark,” said the duke, 
giving back the bow. 

The archers withdrew. The order circulated through 
their bands, and in a few moments more down came the 
iron rain. It took the English host as by surprise, 
piercing hide cap and even iron helm ; and in the very 
surprise that made them instinctively look up — death 
came. 

A dull groan as from many hearts boomed from the 
entrenchments on the Norman ear. 

“Now,” said William, “they must either use their 
shields to guard their heads — and their axes are useless 
— or while they smite with the axe they fall by the shaft. 
On now to the ramparts. I see my crown already resting 
on yonder standard ! ” 

Yet despite all, the English bear up; the thickness of 
the palisades, the comparative smallness of the last en- 
closure, more easily therefore manned and maintained by 
the small force of the survivors, defy other weapons than 
those of the bow. Every Norman who attempts to scale 
the breast-work is slain on the instant, and his body cast 
forth under the hoofs of the baffled steeds. The sun sinks 
near and nearer towards the red horizon 

“ Courage !” cries the voice of Harold, “hold but till 
nightfall and ye are saved. Courage and freedom ! ” 

“ Harold and Holy Crosse ! ” is the answer. 

Still foiled. William again resolves to hazard his fatal 


HAROLD. 


349 


stratagem. He marked that quarter of the enclosure 
which was most remote from the provident watch of 
Harold, whose cheering voice ever and anon he recognized 
amidst the hurtling clamor. In this quarter the palisades 
were the weakest and the ground the least elevated ; but 
it was guarded by men on whose skill with axe and shield 
Harold placed the firmest reliance — the Anglo-Danes of 
his old East-Anglian earldom. Thither, then, the duke 
advanced a chosen column of his heavy-armed foot, tu- 
tored especially by himself in the rehearsals of his favorite 
ruse, and accompanied by a band of archers ; while at 
the same time, he himself, with his brother Odo, headed 
a considerable company of knights under the son of the 
great Roger de Beaumont, to gain the contiguous level 
heights on which now stretches the little town of “Bat- 
tle ; ” there to watch and to aid the manoeuvre. The foot 
column advanced to the appointed spot, and after a short, 
close, and terrible conflict, succeeded in making a’ wide 
breach in the breast-works. But that temporary success 
only animates yet more the exertions of the beleagured 
defenders, and swarming round the breach, and pouring 
through it, line after line of the foe drop beneath their 
axes. The column of the heavy-armed Normans fall 
back, down the slopes — they give way — they turn in dis- 
order — they retreat — they fly ; but the archers stand firm, 
midway on the descent — those archers seem an easy prey 
to the English — the temptation is irresistible. Long 
galled, and harassed, and maddened by the shafts, the 
Anglo-Danes rush forth at the heels of the Normal 


HAROLD. 


350 

swordsmen, and sweeping down to exterminate the arch- 
ers, the breach that they leave gapes wide. 

“ Forward,” cries William, and he gallops towards the 
breach. 

11 Forward, ” cries Odo, “I see the hands of the holy 
saints in the air ! Forward ! it is the dead that wheel 
our war-steeds round the living ! ” 

On rush the Norman knights. But Harold is already 
in the breach, rallying round him hearts eager to replace 
the shattered breast-works. 

“ Close shields ! Hold fast ! ” shouts his kingly voice. 

Before him were the steeds of Bruse and Grantmesnil. 
At his breast their spears ; — Haco holds over the breast 
the shield. Swinging aloft with both hands his axe, the 
spear of Grantmesnil is shivered in twain by the king’s 
stroke. Cloven to the skull rolls the steed of Bruse. 
Knight and steed roll on the bloody sward. 

But a blow from the sword of De Lacy has broken 
down the guardian shield of Haco. The son of Sweyn 
is stricken to his knee. With lifted blades and whirling 
maces the Norman knights charge through the breach. 

“ Look up, look up, and guard thy head,” cries the 
fatal voice of Haco to the king. 

At that cry, the king raises his flashing eyes. W r hy 
halts his stride ? Why drops the axe from his hand ? 
As he raised his head, down came the hissing death-shaft. 
It smote the lifted face ; it crushed into the dauntless 
eye-ball. He reeled, he staggered, he fell back several 
yards, at the foot of his gorgeous standard. With des- 


HAROLD. 351 

perate mnd he broke the head of the shaft, and left the 
barb, quivering in the anguish. 

Gurth knelt over him. 

“Fight on,” gasped the king; “conceal my death! 
Holy Crosse ! England to the rescue ! woe — woe ! ” 

"Rallying himself a moment, he sprang to his feet, 
clenched his right hand, and fell once more, — a corpse. 

At the same moment a simultaneous rush of horsemen 
towards the standard bore back a line of Saxons, and 
covered the body of the king with heaps of the slain. 

His helmet cloven in two, his face all streaming with 
blood, but still calm in its ghastly hues, amidst the fore- 
most of those slain, fell the fated Haeo. He fell with 
his head on the breast of Harold, kissed the bloody cheek 
with bloody lips, groaned, and died. 

Inspired by despair with superhuman strength, Gurth 
striding over the corpses of his kinsmen, opposed him- 
self singly to the knights ; and the entire strength of the 
English remnant, coming round him at the menaced dan- 
ger to the standard, once more drove off the assailants. 

But now all the enclosure was filled with the foe, the 
whole space seemed gay in the darkening air with ban- 
derols and banners. High through all rose the club of 
the Conqueror; high through all shone the crozier of the 
Churchman. Not one Englishman fled ; all now center- 
ing round the standard, they fell, slaughtering if slaugh- 
tered. Man by man, under the charmed banner, fell the 
lithsmen of Hilda. Then died the faithful Saexwolf. Tlieu 


HAROLD. 


35 ^ 

died the gallant Godrith, redeeming, by the death of 
many a Norman, his young fantastic love of the Norman 
manners. Then died, last of such of the Kent men as 
had won retreat from their scattered vanguard into the 
circle of closing slaughter, — the English-hearted Yebba. 

Even still in that age, when the Teuton had yet in his 
veins the blood of Odin, the demi-god, — even still one 
man could delay the might of numbers. Through the 
crowd, the Normans beheld with admiring awe, — here, 
in the front of their horse, a single warrior, before whose 
axe, spear shivered, helm dropped ; — there, close by the 
standard, standing breast-high among the slain, one still 
more formidable, and even amidst ruin unvanquished. 
The first fell at length under the mace of Roger de 
Montgommeri. So, unknown to the Norman poet (who 
hath preserved in his verse the deeds but not the name), 
fell, laughing in death, young Leofwine ! Still by the 
enchanted standard towers the other ; still the enchanted 
standard waves aloft, with its brave ensign of the soli- 
tary “Fighting Man” girded by the gems that had 
flashed in the crown of Odin. 

“ Thine be the honor of lowering that haughty flag,” 
cried William, turning to one of his favorite and most 
famous knights, Robert de Tessin. 

Overjoyed, the knight rushed forth, to fall by the axe 
of that stubborn defender. 

“Sorcery,” cried Fitzosborne, “sorcery. This is no 
man, but fiend.” 


HAROLD. 353 

“ Spare him, spare the brave/’ cried in a breath Bruse 
D’Aincourt, and De Graville. 

William turned round in wrath at the cry of mercy, 
and, spurring over all the corpses, with the sacred banne.’ 
borne by Tonstain close behind him, so that it shadowed 
his helmet, — he came to the foot of the standard, and for 
one moment there was single battle between the knight- 
duke and the Saxon hero. Nor, even then, conquered 
by the Norman sword, but exhausted by a hundred 
wounds, that brave chief fell,* and the falchion vainly 
pierced him, falling. So, last man at the standard, died 
Gurth. 

The sun had set, the first star was in heaven, tht 
“ Fighting Man” was laid low, and on that spot where 
now, all forlorn and shattered, amidst stagnant water, 
stands the altar-stone of Battle Abbey, rose the glitter- 
ing dragon that surmounted the consecrated banner of 
the Norman victor. 


* Thus Waee : — 

“ Guert (Gurth) vit Engleiz amenuisier, 

Vi K’il n’i ont nul recovrier,” etc. 

“Gurth saw the English diminish, and that there was no hope 
to retrieve the day; the duke pushed forth with such force, that 
he reached him, and struck him with great violence ( par grant air). 
I know not if he died by the stroke, but it is said that it laid him 
low.” 


30 * 


2w 


3b4 


HAROLD. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Close by his banner, amidst the piles of the dead, 
William the Conqueror pitched his pavilion, and sate at 
meat. And over all the plain, far and near, torches were 
moving like meteors on a marsh ; for the duke had per- 
mitted the Saxon women to search for the bodies of their 
lords. And as he sate, and talked, and laughed, there 
entered the tent two humble monks ; their lowly mien, 
their dejected faces, their homely serge, in mournful con- 
trast to the joy and the splendor of the Victory-Feast. 

They came to the Conqueror, and knelt. 

“Rise up, sons of the Church,” said William, mildly, 
“for sons of the Church are we! Deem not that we 
shall invade the rights of the religion which we have 
come to avenge. Nay, on this spot we have already 
sworn to build an abbey that shall be the proudest in the 
land, and where masses shall be sung evermore for the 
repose of the brave Normans who fell in this field, and 
for mine and my consort’s soul.” 

“Doubtless,” said Odo, sneering, “the holy men have 
heard already of this pious intent, and come to pray for 
cells in the future abbey.** 

“ Not so,” said Osgood, mournfully, and in barbarous 
Norman ; “ we have our own beloved convent at Waltham, 


H A ft 0 L T> . 


355 


endowed by the prince whom thine arms have defeated. 
We come to ask but to bury in our sacred cloisters the 
corpse of him so lately king over all England — our 
benefactor, Harold.” 

The duke’s brow fell. 

“And see,” said Aired, eagerly, as he drew out a 
leathern pouch, “we have brought with us all the gold 
that our poor crypts contained, for we misdoubted this 
day ; ” and he poured out the glittering pieces at the 
Conqueror’s feet. 

“ No ! ” said William, fiercely, “ we take no gold for a 
traitor’s body ; no, not if Githa. the usurper’s mother, 
offered us its weight in the shining metal ; unburied be 
the Accursed of the Church, and let the birds of prey 
feed their young with his carcase!” 

Two murmurs, distinct in tone and in meaning, were 
heard in that assembly ; the one of approval from fierce 
mercenaries, insolent with triumph ; the other of generous 
discontent and indignant amaze, from the large majority 
of Norman nobles. 

But William’s brow was still dark, and his eye still 
stern, for his policy confirmed his passions ; and it was 
only by stigmatizing, as dishonored and accursed, the 
memory and cause of the dead king, that he could justify 
the sweeping spoliation of those who had fought against 
himself, and confiscate the lands to which his own quens 
and warriors looked for their reward. 

The murmurs had just died into a thrilling hush, when 
a woman, who had followed the monks unperceived and 


HAROLD. 


R5t? 

unheeded, passed, with a swift and noiseless step to the 
duke’s foot -stool; and, without bending knee to the 
ground, said, in a voice which, though low, was heard 
by all: — 

“Norman, in the name of the women of England, I 
tell thee that thou darest not do this wrong to the hero 
who died in defence of their hearths and their children ! ” 

Before she spoke, she had thrown back her hood ; her 
hair dishevelled, fell over her shoulders, glittering like 
gold, in the blaze of the banquet-lights ; and that won- 
drous beauty, without parallel amidst the dames of Eng- 
land, shone like the vision of an accusing angel, on the 
eyes of the startled duke, and the breathless knights. But 
twice in her life Edith beheld that awful man. Once, 
when roused from her reverie of innocent love by the 
holiday pomp of his trumps and banners, the child-like 
maid stood at the foot of the grassy knoll ; and once 
again, when in the hour of his triumph, and amidst the 
wrecks of England on the field of Sanguelac, with a soul 
surviving the crushed and broken heart, the faith of the 
lofty woman defended the hero dead. 

There, with knee unbent, and form unquailing, with 
marble cheek, and haughty eye, she faced the Conqueror; 
and, as she ceased, his noble barons broke into bold 
applause. 

“Who art thou?” said William, if not daunted, at 
least amazed. “ Methinks I have seen thy face before ; 
thou art not Harold’s wife or sister ? ” 

“Dread lord,” said Osgood, “she was the betrothed of 


HAROLD. 


357 


Harold ; but, as within the degrees of kin, the Church 
forbade their union, and they obeyed the Church.” 

Out from the banquet-throng stepped Mallet de Gra- 
ville. “ 0 my liege,” said he, “ thou hast promised me 
lands and earldom ; instead of these gifts undeserved, 
bestow on me the right to bury and to honor the remains 
of Harold ; to-day I took from him my life, let me give 
all I can in return — a grave!” 

William paused, but the sentiment of the assembly, so 
clearly pronounced, and, it may be, his own better nature 
which, ere polluted by plotting craft, and hardened by 
despotic ire, was magnanimous and heroic, moved and 
won him. “ Lady,” said he, gently, “ thou appealest not 
in vain to Norman knighthood : thy rebuke was just, and 
I repent me of a hasty impulse. Mallet de Graville, thy 
prayer is granted ; to thy choice be consigned the place 
of burial, to thy care the funeral rites of him whose soul 
hath passed out of human judgment.” 

The feast was over ; William the Conqueror slept on 
his couch, and round him slumbered his Norman knights, 
dreaming of baronies to come ; and still the torches moved 
dismally to and fro the waste of death, and through the 
hush of night was heard near and far the wail of women. 

Accompanied by the brothers of Waltham, and attended 
by link-bearers, Mallet de Graville was yet engaged in 
the search for the royal dead — and the search was vain. 
Peeper and stiller, the autumnal moon rose to its melan- 
choly noon, and lent its ghastly aid to the glare of the 
redder lights. But, on leaving the pavilion, they had 


HAROLD. 


3b 3 

missed Edith ; she had gone from them alone, and wan 
lost in that dreadful wilderness. And Aired said, de- 
spondingly — 

“ Perchance we may already have seen the corpse we 
search for, and not recognized it ; for the face may be 
mutilated with wounds. And therefore it is that Saxon 
wives and mothers haunt our battle-fields, discovering 
those they search by signs not known without the house- 
hold.”* 

“Ay,” said the Norman, “I comprehend thee, by the 
letter or device, in which, according to your customs, 
your warriors impress on their own forms some token of 
affection, or some fancied charm against ill.” 

“ It is so,” answered the monk ; “ wherefore I grieve 
that we have lost the guidance of the maid.” 

While thus conversing, they had retraced their steps, 
almost in despair, towards the duke’s pavilion. 

“ See,” said De Graville, “how near yon lonely woman 
hath come to the tent of the duke — yea, to the foot of 
the holy gonfanon, which supplanted * the Fighting 
Man 1 ’ Pardex , my heart bleeds to see her striving to 
lift up the heavy dead ! ” 

The monks neared the spot, and Osgood exclaimed in 
a voice almost joyful, — 

* The suggestions implied in the text will probably be admitted 
as correct; when we read in the Saxon annals of the recognition 
of the dead by peculiar marks on their bodies; the obvious, or at 
least the more natural explanation of those signs is to be found in 
the habit of puncturing the skin, mentioned by the Malmesbury 
ohronicler. 


HAROLD. 


359 


“ It is Edith the Fair ! This way, the torches ! liitner, 
quick ! ” 

The corpses had been flung in irreverent haste from 
either side of the gonfanon, to make room for the banner 
of the conquest, and the pavilion of the feast. Huddled 
together, they lay in that holy bed. And the woman 
silently, and by the help of no light save the moon, was 
intent on her search. She waved her hand impatiently 
as they approached, as if jealous of the dead : but as she 
had not sought, so neither did she oppose, their aid. 
Moaning low to herself, she desisted from her task, and 
knelt watching them, and shaking her head mournfully, 
as they removed helm after helm, and lowered the torches 
upon stern and livid brows. At length the lights fell red 
and full on the ghastly face of Haco — proud and sad as 
in life. 

De Graville uttered an exclamation : “ The king’s 
nephew : be sure the king is near ! ” 

A shudder went over the woman’s form, and the moan- 
ing ceased. 

They unhelmed another corpse ; and the monks and 
the knight, after one glance, turned away sickened and 
awe-stricken at the sight : for the face was all defeatured 
and mangled with wounds ; and nought could they recog- 
Lize- save the ravaged majesty of what had been man. 
But at the sight of that face, a wild shriek broke from 
Edith’s heart. 

She started to her feet — put aside the monks with a 
wild and angry gesture, and bending over the face, 


360 


HAROLD. 


sought with her long hair to wipe from it the clotted 
blood; then, with convulsive fingers, she strove to loosen 
the buckler of the breast-mail. The kaight knelt to assist 
her. “No, no,’ , she gasped out. “He is mine — mine 
now r !” 

Her hands bled as the mail gave way to her efforts; 
the tunic beneath was all dabbled with blood. She rent 
the folds, and on the breast, just above the silenced 
heart, were punctured in the old Saxon letters, the word 
“ Edith ; ” and just below, in characters more fresh, the 
word “England.” 

“ See, see !” she cried in piercing accents; and, clasp- 
ing the dead in her arms, she kissed the lips, and called 
aloud, in words of the tenderest endearments, as if she 
addressed the living. All there knew' then that the 
search was ended; all knew that the eyes of love had 
recognized the dead. 

“ Wed, wed,” murmured the betrothed ; “ wed at last ! 
O Harold, Harold ! the words of the Tala were true — 
and Heaven is kind ! ” and laying her head gently on the 
breast of the dead, she smiled and died. 

At the east end of the choir in the abbey of Waltham, 
was long shown the tomb of the last Saxon king, inscribed 
with the touching words — “ Harold Infelix.” But not 
under that stone, according to the chronicler who should 
best know the truth,* mouldered the dust of him in w'hose 
grave was buried an epoch in human annals. 


* The contemporary Norman chronicler, William of Poitiers. 


HAROLD. 


361 


“Let his corpse,” said William the Norman, “let his 
corpse guard the coasts, which his life madly defended. 
Let the seas wail his dirge, and girdle his grave ; and his 
spirit protect the land which hath passed to the Norman’s 
sway.” 

And Mallet de Graville assented to the word of his 
chief, for his knightly heart turned into honor the latent 
taunt ; and well he knew, that Harold could have chosen 
no burial-spot so worthy his English spirit and his Roman 
end. 

The tomb at Waltham would have excluded the faithful 
ashes of the betrothed, whose heart had broken on the 
bosom she had found ; more gentle was the grave in the 
temple of Heaven, and hallowed by the bridal death- 
dirge of the everlasting sea. 

So, in that sentiment of poetry and love, which made 
half the religion of a Norman knight, Mallet de Graville 
suffered death to unite those whom life had divided. In 
the holy burial-ground that encircled a small Saxon 
chapel, on the shore, and near the spot, on which William 
had leapt to land, one grave received the betrothed ; and 
the tomb of Waltham only honored an empty name. 

Eight centuries have rolled away, and where is the 
Norman now ? or where is not the Saxon ? The little 
urn that sufficed for the mighty lord * is despoiled of his 

* “Rex magnus parv& jacet hie Gulielmus in urna. — 

Sufficit et magno parva Domus Domino.” 

From William the Conqueror’s epitaph (ap-Gemiticen). His 

11—31 


362 


HAROLD 


very dust ; but the tombless shade of the kingly freeman 
still guards the coasts, and rests upon the seas. In many 
a noiseless field, with Thoughts for Armies, your relics, 0 
Saxon Heroes, have won back the victory from the bones 
of the Norman saints; and whenever, with fairer fates, 
Freedom opposes Force, and Justice, redeeming the old 
defeat, smites down the armed Frauds that would conse- 
crate the wrong, — smile, 0 soul of our Saxon Harold, 
smile, appeased, on the Saxon’s land 1 

nones are said to have been disinterred some centuries after his 
4eath. 


THE END, 




























































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